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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 Latemodernism 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
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.
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)
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 offcentre. 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