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1. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE
THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
(ARC61303/ARC2224)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2017)
Name: Chong Yu Xuan ID No.: 0317950
Lecturer: Nicholas Ng Tutorial Time:
Reader/Text Title: 2 Learning from Las
Vegas
Synopsis No: 1
Author: Robert Venturi, Scott Brown, Steven Izenour
Based on “Learning from Las Vegas” Venturi address that symbolism and icongraphy is
a need in architecture. With the desire to accept commercial architecture, he sought to
discredit the Modern Movement by placing value upon explicitly symbolic historical and
‘everyday’ building.
Venturi argues that Post-Modernism had contemporary factors to consider, the main
factor being cars. He stated that, due to the large number of circulation being highways
and roads, vast speed and the orientation of cars, bold communication is needed and
the architecture of supermarkets which includes large signage up front is a valid
response to the context that deserves commandment.
Furthermore, he also suggested that the disorder of the Strip is misread, because Las
Vegas simply is not designed to be aesthetically beautiful from a standing viewpoint. He
states that the Strip uses signs, form and location as a system have been tailored to
vehicular travel and provide their own rhythm to the environment, and it is privately
owned architecture that disrupts this rhythm. Huge blinking signs are what define Las
Vegas, buildings without them are deemed out of place. He compared the market
seller’s power of persuasion to the huge signs on the supermarket windows. Both
communicating with a prospective customer. In Las Vegas two conflicting ways are used
to convey meaning, a big sign with little building (A&P parking) and building as sign
(Long Island Duckling). In Vegas, the sign is more important than the architecture, there
would be no place if the signs are taken away. Venturi states that both styles present are
equally acceptable in Las Vegas.
In a world of fast pace and commercialism he states that connotative architecture is
irrelevant and architecture should embrace iconography and mixed media.
Word Count: 295 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.