ROBERT VENTURI“LESS IS A BORE”

American architect born in 1925.

He attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and graduated from Princeton University.

He has worked with Eero Saarinen and Louis I. Kahn before he founded his own practice in 1958

Founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major architectural figures in the twentieth century.

He helped to shape the way that architects, planners and students experience and think about architecture and the American built environment.

His buildings, planning, theoretical writings and teaching have contributed to the expansion of discourse about architecture.

Venturi’s theories created more impact than his buildings.

Criticized the absence of cultural meaning in modernist designs.

Coined the maxim “LESS IS A BORE” .

He believed that the structure and decoration should remain separate and the decoration should reflect the culture in which it exists.

In contradiction , he considered symbolism unnecessary since modern technology and symbolism is difficult to harmonize.

Even the formal design or fully functional design requirement does not replace or compensate the cultural meaning.

He insisted on the cultural purpose of the project more than the functional programme, which raised the importance of cultural context.

PHILOSOPHY

DESIGN An approach to architectural theory and design that drew from architectural

history in analytical, as opposed to stylistic terms.

His buildings always had surprising forms like asymmetric, geometric, and pop style graphics.

He insisted on the cultural purpose of the project more than the functional programme, which raised the importance of cultural context.

WRITINGSVenturi defied the rational design method of modernism in his book "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" in 1966.

. In 1972, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour published the folio, Learning from Las Vegas later revised in 1977 as Learning from Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form using the student work as a foil for new theory.

This second manifesto was an even more stinging rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes.

The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed"--descriptions of the two predominant ways of embodying iconography in buildings.

The work of Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown adopted the latter strategy, producing formally simple "decorated sheds" with rich, complex and often shocking ornamental flourishes

ARCHITECTURE His architecture helped to redirect American architecture away from a widely practiced,

often banal, modernism in the 1960s to a more exploratory, and ultimately indubitable,design approach that openly drew lessons from architectural history and responded to the everyday context of the American city.

Venturi's buildings typically juxtapose architectural systems, elements and aims, to acknowledge the conflicts often inherent in a project or site.

This "inclusive" approach contrasted with the typical modernist effort to resolve and unify all factors in a complete and rigidly structured—and possibly less functional and more simplistic—work of art.

IMPORTANT WORKS

• Allen Art Museum Addition, at Oberlin, Ohio, 1973 to 1976.• Brant House, at Greenwich, Connecticut, 1972. . • Gordon Wu Hall, at Princeton, New Jersey, 1983. • House in Tuckers Town, at Tucker Town, Bermuda, 1975. • Trubek House, at Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, 1972. • Tucker House, at Mount Kisco, New York, 1975. • Vanna Venturi House, at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1962.

Guild House is a residential building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

On the Guild House the applied ornament is explicit and at the same time contrasts and reinforces the building behind it.

The stripes of white brick placed so high on the building gives it a scale of a

Renaissance Palazzo. The scale of the central space in proportion to the whole building creates the

reading of a grand entrance to the palazzo as well.

At the top is an arched window; it is not structural but used as a sign of a different activity at the top, common space.

The location of the arched window, balconies, and base entry unify the building to a scale of monumental size rather than layers of apartment units.

VANA VENTURI HOUSE One of the first prominent works of the

postmodern architecture movement, is located in the suburban neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The five room house stands only about 30 feet tall at the top of the chimney, but has a monumental front facade, an effect achieved by intentionally manipulating the architectural elements that indicate a building’s scale.

A non-structural applique arch and “hole in the wall” windows, among other elements, together with Venturi’s book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture were an open challenge to Modernist orthodoxy.

Architectural historian Vincent Scully called it “the biggest small building of the second half of the twentieth century.

• The design of the addition was intended to represent its purpose in its appearance and serve as a bridge between the ‘rarified temple’ embodied in Gilbert’s design and the ‘self-effacing warehouse for art’ which was needed.

• Pink granite and red sandstone cladding were used to create a decorative facade that plays composite elements against the whole in a reinterpretation of the main building's character.

Allen Art Museum Addition

>The 1977 addition to the Allen Memorial Art Museum represents what Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown have identified as a ‘decorated shed.’

>The building itself is a box-like form with flat surfaces of varying materials which recede into space with ‘jogs’ in its plan.The presence of the asymmetrical strip windows and low overhang of the roof help provide overall unity with the old building,

the recession back into space lessens the effect of the duality between old and new, diminishing the bulk of the addition compared to the old building.

the use of similarly colored pink granite and sandstone serves as a visual cue to associate the two structures synthetically.

Venturi wanted to unify the physical actualities of site and situation to the design of the building, creating structures which reflect their function in a playful and harmonious way.

The 1977 Venturi addition was conceived of as a highly functional space. It was constructed to meet the growing needs of both the museum and Art department.

Gordon Wu Hall, at Princeton, New Jersey Lieb house

National Gallery London Sainsbury Wing Trabant center

Bibliography

Books referred:

• Complexity and contradiction in architecture

Websites referred:>The Duck or the Decorated Shed -Michael Wildman

> Allen Memorial Art Museum Teacher Resource Packet • www.greatbuildings.com• www.wikipedia.org