Case study of ROBERT VENTURI case study of vanna venturi house

1. ROBERT VENTURI
AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND THEORIST

2. Robert Charles Venturi Jr. was an American architect,
founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and
Associates, and one of the major architectural figures of
the twentieth century.
ROBERT CHARLES VENTURI JR.
BORN: June 25, 1925
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DIED: September 18, 2018 (aged 93)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
AWARDS: Pritzker Prize (1991)
Vincent Scully Prize (2002)
‘’MODERNISM IS ABOUT SPACE. POSTMODERNISM IS
ABOUT COMMUNICATION. YOU SHOULD DO WHAT
TURNS YOU ON.’’

3. Between 1950 and 1954 Venturi worked successively in the architectural offices of Oscar Stonorov and
Eero Saarinen. Then, in 1954, he won the Prix de Rome. This award enabled him to spend two years at
the American Academy in Rome where, in the company of Louis Kahn, he came to admire the city's
Mannerist and Baroque buildings. In the work of Michelangelo and Borromini in particular, Venturi
picked up some ideas about freely using a traditional architectural vocabulary of columns, arches, and
pediments to create structures of great originality.
Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1956, Venturi entered the office of Louis Kahn. The Zambian-born
designer Denise Scott Brown, who married Venturi in 1967, became a third partner in Venturi, Rauch &
Scott Brown in 1977.

4. VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
PROJECT NAME
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
CONSTRUCTION YEAR
1964
ARCHIECT
ROBERT VENTURI
LOCATION
8330 MILLIMAN ST, PHILADELPHIA,USA
One of the first prominent works of the
postmodern architecture.

6. STRUCTURAL DETAILS
• The five room house stands only about 30 feet (9 m) tall at the
top the chimney, but has a monumental front facade.
• A non-structural applique arch and "hole in the wall" windows,
other elements, were challenge to modernist orthodoxy.
• The house is designed around a chimney that is centralized
and goes all the way to the top of the house.
• Externally, they house is built symmetrical.
• Venturi has distorted this idea of symmetry.
• There is also a basement underneath the house that is often
not covered by people.

7. ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
• The basic elements of the house are a reaction
against standard Modernist architectural elements:
- Pitched roof rather than flat roof,- Emphasis on
central hearth & chimney.
- Closed ground floor “set firmly on ground” rather
than modernist columns & glass walls which open up
the ground floor.
- On the front elevation the broken pediment or gable
& a purely Ornamental applique arch reflect return
to mannerist architecture and a rejection
modernism.

8. • House is a composition of rectangular, curvilinear, and
elements coming together (or sometimes juxtaposing
each other) in a way that inarguably creates
complexity and contradiction.
• In order to create more contradiction and complexity,
venturi experimented with scale.
• Inside the house certain elements are too big, such as
the size of the fireplace and the height of the mantel
campared to the size of the room.
• Doors are wide and low in height, especially in contrast
to the grandness of the entrance space.
• Venturi also minimized circulation space in the design
of the house, so that it consisted of large disstinct
rooms with minimum subdivisions between them.

9. “As an architect, i try to be guided not by habit but by a
conscious sense of the past-by precedent, thoughtfully
considered...As an artist, i frankly write about what i like
in architecture: complexity and contradiction. From
what we find we like-what we are easily attracted to-we
can learn much of what we really are.”
-ROBERT VENTURI

11. SIX POINTS
• Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness.
• Ambiguity.
• The Phenomenon of "Both-And" in Architecture.
• The Double-Functioning Element.
• The Inside and the Outside.
• Non-straight forward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto.

12. 1) Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness:
Criticizes "orthodox Modern architects" and their treatment of (and attitudes
toward) complexity. Venturi feels that diversity in architecture represents a type
of sophistication that is lost in the works of the Modernists.
2) Ambiguity:
Simplicity does not always work, because it often results in an architectural
"blandness.“
3) The Phenomenon of "Both-And" in Architecture:
“Both-and" architecture promotes hierarchy within it, which leads to contrasts,
layers and levels of meanings.
4) The Double-Functioning Element:
It derives one meaning from their original/historical context and those
associations, and the new meaning from its contemporary function or context.

13. 5) The Inside and the Outside.
Contrast between the inside and the outside can be a major manifestation of
contradiction in architecture. How- ever, one of the powerful twentieth century
orthodoxies has been the necessity for continuity between them: the inside
should be expressed on the outside.
6) Non-straight forward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto.
The Embracing "contradiction and complexity" in order to create valid, vital works.
Venturi also touches on the concept that richness can contrast with clarity, and
urges architects to leave the tenets of traditional Modernism behind in pursuit of
"truth in its totality," a sort of organic messiness that he perceives as more real
and useful than overly planned, hyper-logical Modernist constructions.

15. “LESS IS MORE.”
“MORE IS MORE.”
“I LIKE ELEMENTS WHICH ARE HYBRID RATHER THAN ‘PURE,’ COMPROMISING
RATHER THAN ‘CLEAR,’ DISTORTED RATHER THAN ‘STRAIGHTFORWARD.’ … I AM
FOR MESSY VITALITY OVER OBVIOUS UNITY. I INCLUDE THE NON SEQUITUR
AND PROCLAIM DUALITY.”

16. The famous yet controversial postmodernism pioneer Robert Venturi designed this house for his
mother Vanna Venturi. The house was completed in 1964, and it is considered as the first
postmodern building, rising more than 10 years before the movement gained momentum. In the
design of this house, Venturi broke the most one of the most important roles of modernism:
“Form follows function.”
The house features a gabled roof, on one of its two longer sides, with a vertical opening at its
center. Below the opening is a square-shaped doorway, yet the door is on the side and not at the
center as it would be expected. The house is also remarkable for its large-scaled chimney at the
center, behind the gabled roof.