Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form [Paperback]

Robert Venturi (Author), Steven Izenour (Author), Denise Scott Brown (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 026272006X | ISBN-13: 978-0262720069 | Publication Date: June 15, 1977 | Edition: revised edition

Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments.This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a brilliant document of the times...a work which uses history knowledgeably, skillfully, and creatively: a rarity." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

"...professionally informed, competitively astute, and perversely brilliant..." The Yale Review

"...these studies are brilliant...the kind of art history and theory that is rarely produced." The New York Times Ada Louis Huxtable

About the Author

Steven Izenour (1940-2001) was coauthor of Learning from Las Vegas (MIT Press, 1977) and a principal in the Philadelphia firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc (VSBA). His most noted projects at VSBA include Philadelphia's Basco showroom, the George D. Widener Memorial Treehouse at the Philadelphia Zoo, the Camden Children's Garden, and the house he designed for his parents in Stony Creek, Connecticut.

Product Details

• Paperback: 193 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; revised edition edition (June 15, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026272006X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262720069
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Professional & Technical > Architecture

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant study of signage and architecture, September 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Paperback)

Robert Venturi's study of the Las Vegas signage phenomena and it's impact on "architecture" is brilliant in it's scope. While written almost twenty five years ago, this book gains more and more pertinence as we as a society progress further into a "reality" of symbols, reproductions and representations. These words and thoughts are basically essential to the understanding of any city anymore, not just Las Vegas. Where this book misses the mark though is in the execution, as shown in Venturi's work, of these ideas. The projects put forth seem to pale in comparison to the implications the text actually has. These notions of architecture are by far some of the most relevant and important in modern theory today, it is unfortunate that their full potential could not be realized in these projects.... but maybe that is for you and I to do.

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic in architecture theory, June 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Paperback)

The title "father of Post Modernism" has been appropriately assigned to Robert Venturi....and it began with this book: Learning from Las Vegas. Written at a time when minimalism in art, and "form follows function" in architecture were the dominant ideas, Venturi et al threw down the gauntlet in challenging the practicing and accademic establishment with such sacriligious slogans as "Less is a bore" (challenging the modernist notion "Less is more")

Venturi should open the eyes of readers who self rightiously condemn today's highway commercial architecture and signage. Venturi challenges us to look at this urbanscape with fresh eyes...to see and understand the order (both functional and visual) in what we have been conditioned to condemn.

The book is well illustrated and gives examples of "the duck" and the "decorated shed" as metaphorical strategies to attract attention to highway commericial buildings.Anyone interested in architecture history and contemporary planning issues should read this book. It may piss you off, but it might also open your eyes to new ways of seeing.

In 1999 it would be interesting to compare Las Vegas to Pleasantville...and to learn in the process about change and the American culture that seems to embrace an ever changing urban landscape. Just as in the mythical Pleasantville in the movie of same name, Venturi upsets the status quo and gets us to see the colors (though sometimes messy and glaring) of the REAL city.

28 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Architectural Nightmare, January 17, 2004

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Paperback)

This is a quite unusual and offbeat treatise on architectural theory, as applied to the world's greatest architectural monstrosity - Las Vegas. This analysis from the early 1970s is obviously outdated because Las Vegas hadn't yet become the monument to megalomania and excess that it is today, but it was already well on its way. The authors analyze Vegas' unique usages of space, lighting, placement, transportation, and building design for the purposes of communication and promotion. Strange chapter titles give a clue to the left-field analysis in store, and the authors have a clear sense of irony, underhandedly implying that Vegas presents the worst in architecture while they appear to be praising its uniqueness. Unfortunately the narrative gets bogged down in dense professor-speak terminology like "Brazilianoid" and "neo-Constructivist megastructures," along with a general overload of obtuse theory. Add to that the poor-quality and under-elaborated illustrations and you have a book that sacrifices insight and readability in favor of pedantic attempts to impress the authors' colleagues. [~doomsdayer520~]