LEARNING FROM Robert Venturi

LAS VEGAS
 OVERVIEW
The book Learning from Las Vegas is an exposition on symbolism in
architecture.
In which the Las Vegas Strip is analyzed as a phenomenon of architectural
communication.
Value of symbolism and reference in architecture of vast space are
demonstrated throughout the Strip.
Therefore, Las Vegas Strip is not the subject of the book. But the symbolism
of architectural form is.
Venturi has described in his study about the prominence of
symbolism-of-space over forms-in-space.
 SYMBOL?
The relationships between space, power and identity are necessarily
mediated by symbols.
A symbol is a concrete reality that communicates something intangible :
consequently, a place of power is by definition a symbolic place, which is a
vehicle for power in the spatial order and for space in the order of power.
The symbolic mediations between these different orders of reality are
therefore produced and interpreted only in the context in which they emerge.
A place can be considered as “ symbolic ” whenever it means something to a
group of individuals, in such a way that it contributes to giving an identity to
the group.
 SUBSTANCE
A writer is like pottery maker who could form given realities and discoveries
of past time according to his own realities, opinions and feelings. Like a
pottery maker makes the pottery from rough clay by applying force and
sometimes smoothness of his hands.
ANALOGY, SYMBOL AND IMAGE.
How could we look and learn things? The two ways to look and learn the things is
to connect your future path with history and traditions and other is to have a new
path which is not in relation with the past.
First makes you judgmental on everything but with some acceptance while the
other also makes you judgmental but with no acceptance.
Like orthodox modern architecture which is not satisfied with the existing condition.
Architects have preferred to change the existing environment rather than
enhance what is there.
 ARCHITECTURE, SPACE AND
ART

In gothic churches or classical architecture the paintings on stained glass present

a story or information of past to its viewers in a very indirect way. But modern
architecture is focused on space and separate architecture from paintings sculpture
and literature. And the symbols which are used by modern architects in the space
SIGN DOMINANT OVER SPACE
Every city communicates through
signs. Which could be of three
types. Functional, symbolic and,
persuasive. And which helps a
person to make some memories
and experiences about spaces of
that city. All these three system of
signs are interrelated on strip.
And Sometime sign become the
form of building.
 DIFFERENT FORMS OF SIGNS
MIDDLE EASTERN OR MEDIEVAL TOWN
BAZAR
Both bazars contain no signs. The
communication works through the shoppers
changed senses like feel, touch, smell and
sight. And also the merchant’s oral persuasion.
On the other hand on commercial strips the
building with low height present at far from the
parking lot. The windows and the whole space
contains no merchant with oral persuasion or
any other thing which can attract the buyers
senses. Every thing is arranged according to
direct signs on the board without any surprising
element.
 DIFFERENT FORMS OF SIGNS

SPEED
Speed also play an important role during experience of space. When a buyer is moving in
eastern bazar his speed is 3 mph and on the Las Vegas strip his speed is 35 mph, therefore
both have different approach towards signs and symbols which are present in space.
 RELATIONSHIP
Venturi linkens Las Vegas to the Roman piazza. In Rome, every road leads
to the inevitable piazza—a void in the congested city.
In Vegas, every road leads to the Strip—a void with no focus, in an open,
indefinite space. Only the scale has changed, from a space for pedestrians to
one for automobiles.
The Renaissance piazza was heavily ornamented with mixed-media symbols
borrowed from other eras.
Similarly, the billboards that line the highways of Vegas, inspired from the
Roman triumphal arch, architecture as propaganda meant to be read at 55
m.p.h.
 DIFFERENT FORMS OF SIGNS
Las Vegas is neither
contained and enclosed
like medieval space nor
classically balances and
proportional like
renaissance space. And
not follow the rhythmically
order of baroque or
freestanding urban space
of modern architecture.
Las Vegas having new
spatial order relating to the
automobile and highway
communication.
 PATTERN OF ACTIVITY IN LAS
VEGAS

Churche Chapels
Maps Show the sconventional land use of las Vegas and also the overall structure of
commercial use in city and also the social use of strip.
FOOD STORES
 MANNER OF LAS VEGAS
STRIP
A hotel or casino building is near enough to the highway to be seen from the road across
and the parking lot. And allows easy and interesting pedestrian sight to hotel or casino.
Side elevations are also very important as they are visible from long distances on highway.
Service station, motels and other types of buildings conform in general to this system of
inflection toward highway through the position and form of elements.
Back of building is style less because no one can see.
SCHEDULE OF LAS VEGAS STRIP
HOTELS PLAN, SECTIONS,
ELEVATIONS
 TIMELESS SPACE
Aesthetic sensations may be produced by the
treatment of walls, proportions of windows, the
relation of wall-space to window-space.
Secondly, the treatment of the exterior of a
building as a whole is aesthetically significant, its
contrasts of block against block.
Thirdly, there is the effect of our senses of the
treatment of the interior, the sequence of
rooms....
In the gambler room, time is limitless because
the light of day and night is the same. Artificial
light obscures rather than defining its boundary.
Walls and ceiling absorb light rather than acting
as reflective surfaces.
 CONCLUSION
Venturi concludes: "Learning from popular culture does not remove the
architect from his or her status in high culture. But it may alter high culture to
make it more sympathetic to current needs.
He suggests that the irony and the use of a joke to get to seriousness could
be used as weapons of artists of non-authoritarian temperament in situations
that do not agree with them and that architects who learn from their
techniques need not reproduce the content or the superficiality of their
messages.
It was no good approaching Las Vegas with preconceived opinions: the
architect had to suspend disbelief because, Venturi et al. argued, "withholding
judgment may be used as a tool to make later judgment more sensitive.
This is a way of learning from everything." One of the problems was that
"Architects are out of the habit of looking non-judgmentally at the
environment."
 SYMBOL OF SPACE BEFORE

This architecture of styles and signs is antispatial; it is an architecture of

communication over space; communication dominates space as an element
in the architecture and in the landscape.