Robert Venturi, American architect and designer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1925. Venturi attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and graduated from Princeton University. He founded his own architecture practice in 1958. Venturi formed a partnership with John Rausch in 1964. Venturi's wife, Denise Scott Brown joined the partnership in 1967.
Venturi is considered by many to be the first major post-modern architect. Venturi disagrees with this label, saying "I am not and never have been a Postmodernist and I unequivocally disavow fatherhood of this architectural movement. The reaction against it by the architectural and critical establishment in the early ’90s I can understand; however I disagree with Neomod, the Modern-Revival or Modern-dramatique style that has replaced it."(1)
Important buildings include:
- Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1962
- Tucker House, Mount Kisco, New York, 1975
- Allen Art Museum Addition, Oberlin, Ohio, 1973 to 1976.
- Trubek House, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, 1972.
- House in Tuckers Town, Tucker Town, Bermuda, 1975.
- Gordon Wu Hall, Princeton, New Jersey, 1983.
- Brant House, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1973.
Major books by Venturi include:
- Architecture as Elemental Shelter, the City as Valid Decon with Denise Scott Brown
London: The Academy Group, 1991
- A View from the Campidoglio: Selected Essays, 1953-1984 with Denise Scott Brown
New York: Harper & Row, 1984
- Iconography and Electronics Upon a Generic Architecture, A View from the Drafting Room
MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996.
- Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1966
- Learning from Las Vegas, with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1972
Venturi received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1991. Venturi has also designed products for Alessi.
Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates is located on the web at www.vsba.com
1. www.vsba.com/index.html