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View from the Campidoglio: Selected Essay 1953-1984,
by Robert Venturi and
Denise Scott Brown.
A friend once said the following
in reference to Aldo Rossi: "He may be a genius, but
I don't like his buildings." The same quote can be
used to sum up my feelings towards Robert Venturi and his
domestic and professional partner Denise Scott Brown. But
after attending a lecture by Venturi a few weeks ago, I
decided to finally break open their collection of essays
that spans their most influential and popular period and
see if it could sway my opinion of their work. Needless
to say it didn't, even though Venturi and his wife have
a solid theoretical foundation for their practice and some
valid criticisms of architecture and practice.
The collection starts with Venturi's
master's thesis at Princeton then picks up fifteen years
later around the time of Complexity and Contradiction,
Venturi's highly influential criticism of Modernism. This
book, and the duo's later Learning from Las Vegas,
expound the ideas that have preoccupied them to this day:
symbolism, iconography, the "decorated shed",
ornamentation and its segregation from function. They correctly
critique the supposed functional determinism of Modernism,
an ideal often times secondary to the industrial aesthetic
of function. They propose that architecture should be a
loft or shed that fulfills the building's function. In front
or surrounding this container is sign and symbolism that
conveys meaning. Unfortunately, in their hands, the results
are often unappealing or downright ugly. And while these
essays help the reader to understand their motives behind
certain architectural and aesthetic choices, they don't
convince that the outcomes are the best solutions for their
theories.
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