Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies)

Venturi, Robert; Scott Brown, Denise

ISBN 10: 0674015711 / ISBN 13: 9780674015715

Published by Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2004

About this Item

ix plus 251 pages, color photos through. Yellow cloth. A clean and unworn copy, about unread looking, very minor corner bumps to the (unclipped) dust jacket. INSCRIBED by architect co-author Denise SCOTT BROWN on a drawn heart motif, and, with a mathematical cypher, perhaps referring to the date it was signed. Unmarked otherwise. Collected essays, a series by Venturi and a series by Scott Brown, and then a jointly written conclusion.

Seller Inventory # QQ18

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies)
• Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674015711
• ISBN 13: 9780674015715
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Architecture

About this title

Synopsis

Robert Venturi exploded onto the architectural scene in 1966 with a radical call to arms in Complexity and Contradiction. Further accolades and outrage ensued in 1972 when Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (along with Steven Izenour) analyzed the Las Vegas strip as an archetype in Learning from Las Vegas. Now, for the first time, these two observer-designer-theorists turn their iconoclastic vision onto their own remarkable partnership and the rule-breaking architecture it has informed.

The views of Venturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape; generic building and electronic communication are among the many ideas they have championed. Here, they present both a fascinating retrospective of their life work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings.

Accessible, informative, and beautifully illustrated, Architecture as Signs and Systems is a must for students of architecture and urban planning, as well as anyone intrigued by these seminal cultural figures. Venturi and Scott Brown have devoted their professional lives to broadening our view of the built world and enlarging the purview of practitioners within it. By looking backward over their own life work, they discover signs and systems that point forward, toward a humane Mannerist architecture for a complex, multicultural society.

About the Authors

Robert Venturi was principal in charge of design in the architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Pritzker Prize and the Centennial Medal of the American Academy in Rome and, with Denise Scott Brown, the National Medal of Art and the Vincent J. Scully Prize of the National Building Museum. He taught at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.

Denise Scott Brown is principal in charge of urban and campus planning and design in the architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the ACSA-AIA Topaz Medallion for Architecture Education and the Chicago Architecture Award. She has taught at Harvard, Yale, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania.