ROBERT

VENTURI
Life & Works
 Introduction
Robert Charles Venturi is an American architect, founding
principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and
one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth
century. Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in
Architecture in 1991. He is also known for coining the maxim
"Less is a bore" a postmodern antidote to Mies van der
Rohe's famous modernist dictum "Less is more". Venturi studied
at the Princeton University School of Architecture in New
Jersey (194750). After further study at the American
Academy in Rome (195456), he worked as a designer in the
architectural firms of Oscar Stonorov (Philadelphia), Eero
Saarinen (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), and Louis I.
Kahn (Philadelphia). After holding partnerships in several firms,
he opened a longer-lasting architectural firm with John
Rauch in 1964. Venturis wife, Denise Scott Brown, became a
partner in the firm in 1967. From 1957 to 1965 Venturi was a
member of the faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Architecture in Philadelphia.
 Philosophy: Postmodernism
The Postmodernist movement began in America around the 1960s
1970s and then it spread to Europe and the rest of the world, to remain
right through to the present. The aims of Postmodernism or Late-
modernism begin with its reaction to Modernism; it tries to address the
limitations of its predecessor. The list of aims is extended to include
communicating ideas with the public often in a then humorous or witty
way. Often, the communication is done by quoting extensively from
past architectural styles, often many at once. In breaking away from
modernism, it also strives to produce buildings that are sensitive to the
context within which they are built.
Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic",
where reference and ornament have returned to the facade,
replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles. This
eclecticism is often combined with the use of non-orthogonal angles
and unusual surfaces, most famously in the State Gallery of
Stuttgart by James Stirling and the Piazza d'Italia by Charles Moore
and the Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi
 Robert Venturi: His Postmodern
architecture
Robert Venturi was at the forefront of this movement. His
book, Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture (published in 1966), was instrumental in
opening readers eyes to new ways of thinking about
buildings, as it drew from the entire history of architecture
both high-style and vernacular, both historic and modern
and lambasted overly simplistic Functional Modernism.
A statement by Robert Venturi explaining the criticism of
Modernism in his Book Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture:
Architects can bemoan or try to ignore them
(referring to the ornamental and decorative elements in
buildings) or even try to abolish them, but they will not go
away. Or they will not go away for a long time, because
architects do not have the power to replace them (nor do
they know what to replace them with).
 In Venturis second
book, Learning from Las
Vegas (1972) further developed
his take on modernism. Venturi
here argues that ornamental
and decorative elements
accommodate existing needs
for variety and
communication. Here Venturi
stresses the importance of the
building communicating a
meaning to the public, a value
shared by postmodernists in
general. This communication
however is not intended to be a
direct narration of the meaning.
Venturi goes on to explain that
it is rather intended to be a
communication that could be
interpreted in many ways. Each
interpretation is more or less true
for its moment because work of
such quality will have many
dimensions and layers of
meaning.
 Architecture Of Robert Venturi
The architecture of Robert Venturi, although perhaps not as familiar
today as his books, helped redirect American architecture away from a
widely practiced, often banal, modernism in the 1960's to a more
exploratory, and ultimately eclectic, design approach that openly drew
lessons from historic architecture and responded to the everyday context
of the American city.
Venturi's architecture has had
world-wide influence,
beginning in the 1960s with the
dissemination of the broken-
gable roof of the Vanna
Venturi House and the
segmentally arched window
and interrupted string courses
of Guild House. The playful
variations on vernacular house
types seen in the Trubeck and
Wislocki Houses offered a new
way to embrace, but
transform, familiar forms.
 Projects
Robert Venturi had his share of Post Modern
Buildings. Being one of the front men in the post
modern movement. His List goes on. A few are:
Vanna Venturi House; Philadelphia (1964) won the
AIA Twenty-five Year Award and was recognized as a
"Masterwork of Modern American Architecture"
Seattle Art Museum; Seattle, Washington (1991)
Guild House; Philadelphia (1964)
Seattle Art Museum; Seattle, Washington (1991)
Htel du Dpartement de la Haute-Garonne; Toulouse,
France, (2005)
Gordon Wu Hall; Princeton, New Jersey, (1983)
Michael Graves, Benacerraf House addition, Princeton, New
Jersey, (1969)
 Vanna Venturi House
Robert Venturi
The Vanna Venturi House, one of the first prominent
works of the postmodern architecture movement, is
located in the suburban neighbourhood of Chestnut
Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was designed by
architect Robert Venturi for his mother Vanna Venturi,
and constructed between 1962 -1964.
Plans and elevations are built on a rigid axial, even
Palladian, symmetry, which becomes monumental in the
street faced but looser at the extremities and rear of the
house, in keeping with the domestic program.
Venturi states : Architects can no longer afford to be
intimidated by the puritanically moral language of
orthodox Modern architecture. I like elements which are
hybrid rather than "pure," compromising rather than
"clear," distorted rather than "straightforward." ... I am for
messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non
sequitur and proclaim duality.
Vanna Venturi House Robert Venturi
Plan Vanna Venturi house

Section Vanna
Venturi house
 Architecture Vanna Venturi
house
Characteristics of the house :
Many of the basic elements of the house are a reaction
against standard Modernist architectural elements: the
pitched roof rather than flat roof, the emphasis on the
central hearth and chimney, a closed ground floor "set
firmly on the ground" rather than the Modernist columns
and glass walls which open up the ground floor.
On the front elevation the broken pediment or gable and
a purely ornamental applique arch reflect a return
to Mannerist architecture and a rejection of Modernism.
Thus the house is a direct break from Modern architecture,
designed in order to disrupt and contradict formal
Modernist aesthetics.
 The site of the house is flat, with a long driveway connecting it
to the street. Venturi placed the parallel walls of the house
perpendicular to the main axis of the site, defined by the
driveway, rather than the usual placement along the axis.
The chimney is emphasized by the centrally placed room on
the second floor, but the actual chimney is small and off-
centre. The effect is to magnify the scale of the small house
and make the facade appear to be monumental.

The house was constructed with intentional formal architectural,

historical and aesthetic contradictions. Venturi has compared
the iconic front facade to "a child's drawing of a house." Yet he
has also written, "This building recognizes complexities and
contradictions: it is both complex and simple, open and closed,
big and little; some of its elements are good on one level and
bad on another its order accommodates the generic elements
and of the house in general, and the circumstantial elements of
a house in particular."
 Awards
Robert Venturi being one of the great architects of
the modern era has won numerous awards for his
buildings which include :
The Pritzker Architecture Prize; 1991
AIA Twenty-five Year Award to the Vanna Venturi House; 1989
AIA Architecture Firm Award, to Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown;
1985
AIA Medal for Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture; 1978
National Medal of Arts, United States Presidential Award; 1992
(with Denise Scott Brown)
Vincent Scully Prize, National Building Museum; 2002 (with Denise
Scott Brown)
Fellow in the American Institute of Architects