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Architecture Words 4: Having Words
Having Words collects together ten essays by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown. The essays extend from her 1969 text, ‘On Pop Art, Permissiveness and Planning’ to ‘Towards an Active Socioplastics’ from 2007, which offers an overview of Scott Brown’s education and the gestation of her key architectural and urban ideas. The collection is bookended by two additional texts by Scott Brown, a foreword and an afterword, addressing specifically the act of writing about architecture.
Architecture Words is a series of texts and important essays on architecture written by architects, critics and scholars. Like many aspects of everyday life, contemporary architectural culture is dominated by an endless production and consumption of images, graphics and information. Rather than mirror this larger force, this series of small books seeks to deflect it by means of direct language, concise editing and beautiful, legible graphic design. Each volume in the series offers the reader texts that distil important larger issues and problems, and communicate architectural ideas; not only the ideas contained within each volume, but also the enduring power of written ideas more generally to challenge and change the way all architects think.
Architecture Words is a series of texts and important essays on architecture written by architects, critics and scholars. Like many aspects of everyday life, contemporary architectural culture is dominated by an endless production and consumption of images, graphics and information. Rather than mirror this larger force, this series of small books seeks to deflect it by means of direct language, concise editing and beautiful, legible graphic design. Each volume in the series offers the reader texts that distil important larger issues and problems, and communicate architectural ideas; not only the ideas contained within each volume, but also the enduring power of written ideas more generally to challenge and change the way all architects think.
- GenresArchitectureNonfiction
155 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2009
11 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Denise Scott Brown
25 books10 followersDenise Scott Brown ( Lakofski) is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Denise Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, are regarded among the most influential architects of the twentieth century, both through their architecture and planning, and theoretical writing and teaching.
In 1972, with Venturi and Steven Izenour, Scott Brown wrote Learning From Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. The book published studies of the Las Vegas Strip, undertaken with students in a research studio Scott Brown taught with Venturi in 1970 at Yale's School of Architecture and Planning. The book joined Venturi's previous Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (Museum of Modern Art, 1966) as a rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes, and a pointed acceptance of American sprawl and vernacular architecture. The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed" as applied to opposing architectural styles. Scott Brown has remained a prolific writer on architecture and urban planning.
In 1972, with Venturi and Steven Izenour, Scott Brown wrote Learning From Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. The book published studies of the Las Vegas Strip, undertaken with students in a research studio Scott Brown taught with Venturi in 1970 at Yale's School of Architecture and Planning. The book joined Venturi's previous Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (Museum of Modern Art, 1966) as a rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes, and a pointed acceptance of American sprawl and vernacular architecture. The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed" as applied to opposing architectural styles. Scott Brown has remained a prolific writer on architecture and urban planning.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 28, 2013
Great book in a good little series from the AA. Denise Scott-Brown is really one of my heroes. Her application of historical, ethnographic and sociological thinking to urban design and architecture is still incredibly radical, but has been completely overwhelmed by Venturi’s obsession with signs and language. Somebody needs to do a proper book on that, a big one.
June 25, 2021
Коллекция эссе Дениз Скотт Браун из очень хорошей серии, которую делали The AA School. Я случайно украла ее из библиотеки моего парижского университета года три назад. Не все легко читается — а когда вам в этой профессии в последний раз было легко? Однако замечательны эссе о сексизме и стархитекторах (она написала его в семидесятых, но не опубликовала, потому что боялась, что это навредит ее карьере; эссе это больно читать), о дизайне женских туалетов, о важности написания текстов в архитектуре. Какая замечательная женщина, ученая, зодчая!
June 21, 2024
Classic, funny, smart, revealing of what it’s like to be a woman making in the world
February 21, 2021
En esta colección de ensayos, la autora dibuja un mapa de su pensamiento —que de alguna manera refleja la posmodernidad en arquitectura— desde 1967 con «Planeando el tocador» hasta 2009 con «Palabras sobre arquitectura». Como la misma Scott Brown lo expresa en el prólogo, ella ha sido jinete de circo toda su vida, cabalgando entre la arquitectura y el urbanismo, dos bestias que tiran en direcciones opuestas.
En estos ensayos se tocan temas sociales, de planificación urbana y arquitectónicos escritos de una manera inteligente y amena. La voz de Scott Brown es un susurro que se vuelve grito: el ensayo «Sexismo y el star system en arquitectura» (1989) es un llamado de atención sobre el papel de la mujer y lo poco reconocidas que son sus contribuciones en la arquitectura. En «Hacia una socioplástica activa» (2007) la autora relata el impacto que tuvo en su formación como arquitecta las lecciones sobre sociología, disciplina que ha adoptado en su práctica profesional desde entonces.
«Having words» es un texto obligado para las personas en formación y formadas en disciplinas espaciales como la arquitectura, el urbanismo, la geografía y la planeación urbana.
En estos ensayos se tocan temas sociales, de planificación urbana y arquitectónicos escritos de una manera inteligente y amena. La voz de Scott Brown es un susurro que se vuelve grito: el ensayo «Sexismo y el star system en arquitectura» (1989) es un llamado de atención sobre el papel de la mujer y lo poco reconocidas que son sus contribuciones en la arquitectura. En «Hacia una socioplástica activa» (2007) la autora relata el impacto que tuvo en su formación como arquitecta las lecciones sobre sociología, disciplina que ha adoptado en su práctica profesional desde entonces.
«Having words» es un texto obligado para las personas en formación y formadas en disciplinas espaciales como la arquitectura, el urbanismo, la geografía y la planeación urbana.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews