ROBERT CHARLES VENTURI

1. LIFE AND TIME


BIRTH June 25, 1925

FAMILY wife architect,
planner, author,
educator Denise
Scott Brown.
partner in the firm since
1969.
collaborator in the
evolution of
architectural theory and
1. LIFE AND TIME

EDUCATION graduated summa cum
laude from Princeton
university in 1947
and received M. F.
A. there in 1950.
furthered his studies
as a Rome prize Fellow
at the American academy
in Rome from 1954 to 1956.
1. LIFE AND TIME
 PROFESSION

b. Philadelphia based architect who

worked under Eero Saarinen and
Louis Kahn.
c. A writer, a teacher, an artist and
philosopher, as well as an architect.
d. In the past three decades since, he
has lectured at numerous
institutions including Yale, Harvard,
UCLA, Rice and the American
Academy in Rome.
1. PHILOSOPHY
 Famous for his response “less is a bore,” to
modernist Mies van Der Rohe’s dictum, “less is
more.”

 “architecture is evolutionary as well as

revolutionary. As an art it will acknowledge what
is and what ought to be , the immediate and the
speculative.”

 He strongly believed that architects can try to

ignore the honky- tonk elements in a building or
even try to abolish them, but they will not go
away. Architects do not have the power to
replace them.
1. WORKS
 VANNA
VENTURI
HOUSE ,1961
chestnut hill,
Pennsylvania
 POSTMODERN IN
STYLE
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE

 An explicitly classical building in the substance of

its plan and form and in the ornament of its
elevation.
 The inside spaces are complex both in shapes
and inter-relationships.
 In contrast, the outside image is simple and
consistent. The front creates an almost symbolic
image of a house.
 The front and back elevation are classically
symmetrical with strong centralities.
 The front elevation is a classical pediment.
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE

 Some people say that

the house looks like a
child’ s drawing of a
house- representing
the fundamental
elements of shelter-
gable roof, chimney,
door and windows.
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
 Plan is symmetrical, but the
symmetry is distorted at times
to accommodate the particular
needs of the spaces.

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
Models for the
proposed scheme
1. WORKS

■TUCKER
HOUSE, 1974
Westchester
county, new
York
TUCKER HOUSE
 This was a house to look
ordinary at first glance, but to
extra ordinary at the second
and while living in it.

 A small house with big scale:

its few parts are big and the
form is simple, bold and
symmetrical.

 Recessive in color and shingle

texture, sitting among the
trees on its lush.
FRONT ELEVATION
 Semi rural site.

 Building is tall and a wooden

 TUCKER HOUSE
 The façade appears
to dominated by a
gable.
 Windows in the
shingled walls are
placed only to reflect
interior demands.

SECTION
TUCKER HOUSE
 PLANNING
a hall which doubles as the
dining area, a kitchen, a
bedroom, and a bathroom
arranged to serve both the
bedroom and the public
spaces.
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
a staircase, wider at the
bottom, rises against one
wall of the house, turning
at the top to open into an
extra ordinary wider living
space.

The fireplace structure

echoes the shape of the
house.
FIRST FLOOR PLAN
TUCKER HOUSE

VIEW OF LIVING FROM LIVING ROOM

THE FIRST FLOOR
1. WORKS
GUILD HOUSE
1961
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
GUILD HOUSE

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

GUILD HOUSE

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

GUILD HOUSE

FRONT ELEVATION
GUILD HOUSE
 Small urban site.
 A 6 storey building which houses 91
apartments of varying types for
elderly tenants who desired to
remain in their old neighborhood.
 Conventional architectural elements,
to accommodate budget constraints.
GUILD HOUSE
 MATERIAL
The brick, an expensive red clay.
 The scale of windows also differs
according to their distance from the street.
 Interior spaces are complex to suit the
varying programme of he apartment
house.
OTHER WORKS
 The firm's addition for the
Oberlin College art museum
(shown above) is decked with
a playful red and white
checkerboard pattern. Tucked
in a rear alcove is an
oversized wooden column
with an enormous "Ionic"
capital.

 There is a playful retro look to

the
Celebration, Florida bank building Postmodern addition to the Oberlin
designed by Robert Venturi College art museum in Ohio, 1977
and Denise Scott Brown. Venturi, Scott Brown and
Molded to fit the shape of the Associates
street corner it occupies, the
bank resembles a 1950s-era
gas station or hamburger
restaurant.
1. CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS
 1962. The Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
 1972. Trubek House, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
 1973. Brant House, Greenwich, Connecticut
 1973 to 1976. Allen Art Museum Addition, Oberlin, Ohio
 1975. House in Tuckers Town, Bermuda.
 1975. Tucker House, Mount Kisco, New York
 1983. Gordon Wu Hall, Princeton, New Jersey
 1994: Bank building in Celebration, Florida

Selected Awards:
 1990. AIA Medal of Distinction, The Pennsylvania Society of
Architects
 1991. Pritzker Architecture Prize
 1992. National Medal of Arts, U.S. Presidential award
THANK YOU