Abstract
The concept of “landscape” in the works of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, far from being an ideological one, is strictly intertwined with its concrete use, physical perception and anthropological meaning. The two Philadelphian architects referred to that more often as “urban context”, implying not only its spatial qualities—such as scale and proportion—but also suggesting the spontaneous generation of relations—both material and immaterial—of the city. Through a selection of writings and buildings, my paper investigates the evolution of the reflections on urban landscape by Venturi and Scott Brown, from their earlier thoughts on the qualities of Italian cities, to the “survey” of the city of Las Vegas in the Sixties, and the resulting ways those ideas became interpreted and materialized in their architectural and urban projects.
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Notes
- 1.
For this essay, page references will be to the second edition (1977).
- 2.
The letters preserved at the Venturi Scott Brown Collection of the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania (from now on: VSB Collection, AAUP) provide invaluable insights in the lifestyle of the Venturi family.
- 3.
Letter to parents, August 9, 1948 (225.RV.20, VSB Collection, AAUP).
- 4.
Letter to parents, August 15, 1948 (225.RV.22, VSB Collection, AAUP).
- 5.
Summer Activities: Report and Some Impressions, September 30, 1948, p. 2 (225.RV.34, VSB Collection, AAUP).
- 6.
The dissertation, preserved at the VSB Collection of the AAUP, is also published in Venturi [6] pp. 334–374.
- 7.
Las Vegas Studio (VSB Collection, AAUP, VI, 225, F. 6905).
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Sessa, R. (2021). From Piazza to Strip: Reflections on Landscape in the Writings and Projects of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. In: Bianconi, F., Filippucci, M. (eds) Digital Draw Connections. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 107. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59743-6_7
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