Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) 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. Together with ...

, and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped shape the way that architects, planners and students experience and think about architecture and the built environment. Their buildings, planning, theoretical writings, and teaching have also contributed to the expansion of discourse about architecture. Venturi was awarded the

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

in Architecture in 1991; the prize was awarded to him alone, despite a request to include his equal partner, Scott Brown. Subsequently, a group of women architects attempted to get her name added retroactively to the prize, but the Pritzker Prize jury declined to do so. Venturi is also known for having coined the maxim "Less is a bore", a

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or Rhetorical modes, mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by philosophical skepticism, skepticis ...

antidote to Mies van der Rohe's famous

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

dictum "Less is more". Venturi lived in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

with Denise Scott Brown. He is the father of James Venturi, founder and principal of ReThink Studio.

Early life and education

Venturi was born in Philadelphia to Robert Venturi Sr. and Vanna (née Luizi) Venturi and was raised as a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

.The Nassau Herald 1947, Princeton University yearbook Venturi attended school at the

Episcopal Academy The Episcopal Academy, founded in 1785, is a private, co-educational school for grades Pre-K through 12 based in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. Prior to 2008, the main campus was located in Merion Station and the satellite campus was located in ...

Merion Merion Station, also known as Merion, is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It borders Philadelphia to its west and is one of the communities that make up the Philadelphia Main Line. Merion Station is part of Lower Me ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. He graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1947 where he was a member-elect of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

and won the D'Amato Prize in Architecture. He received his M.F.A. from Princeton in 1950. The educational program at Princeton under Professor Jean Labatut, who offered provocative design studios within a Beaux-Arts pedagogical framework, was a key factor in Venturi's development of an approach to

architectural theory Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and design that drew from architectural history and commercial architecture in analytical, as opposed to stylistic, terms.Robert Venturi 1991 Laureate
Pritzker Architecture Prize In 1951 he briefly worked under

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Bloomfield Hills is a small city (5.04 sq. miles) in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is approximately northwest of Downtown Detroit. Except a small southern border with the city of Bir ...

, and later for

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. W ...

in Philadelphia. He was awarded the

Rome Prize Fellowship The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatu ...

at the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History In 1893, a group of American architects, ...

in 1954, where he studied and toured Europe for two years. From 1959 to 1967, Venturi held teaching positions at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

, where he served as Kahn's teaching assistant, an instructor, and later, as associate professor. It was there, in 1960, that he met fellow faculty member, architect and planner Denise Scott Brown. Venturi taught later at the

Yale School of Architecture The Yale School of Architecture (YSOA) is one of the constituent professional schools of Yale University, and is generally considered to be one of the best architecture schools in the United States. The School awards the degrees of Master of Arc ...

and was a visiting lecturer with Scott Brown in 2003 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

Architectural theories

A controversial critic of what he saw as the blithely functionalist and symbolically vacuous architecture of corporate modernism during the 1950s, Venturi was one of the first architects to question some of the premises of the Modern Movement. He published his "gentle manifesto", ''Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture'' in 1966; in its introduction,

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phi ...

called it "probably the most important writing on the making of architecture since

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

's ''Vers Une Architecture'' of 1923." The work was derived from course lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and Venturi received a grant from the

Graham Foundation The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit that “fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realize ...

in 1965 to aid in its completion. The book demonstrated, through countless examples, an approach to understanding architectural composition and complexity, and the resulting richness and interest. Citing

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

as well as high-style sources, Venturi drew new lessons from the buildings of architects familiar (

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

Alvar Aalto Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (; 3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, s ...

) and, at the time, forgotten (

Frank Furness Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memor ...

). He made a case for "the difficult whole" rather than the diagrammatic forms popular at the time, and included examples — both built and unrealized — of his own work to demonstrate the possible application of such techniques. The book has been published in 18 languages to date. Denise Scott Brown 1978 © Lynn Gilbert

Immediately hailed as a theorist and designer with radical ideas, Venturi went to teach a series of studios at the

in the mid-1960s. The most famous of these was a studio in 1968 in which Venturi and Scott Brown, together with

Steven Izenour Steven Izenour (July 16, 1940 in New Haven – August 21, 2001 in Vermont) was an American architect, urbanist and theorist. He is best known as co-author, with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, of ''Learning from Las Vegas'', one of the m ...

, led a team of students to document and analyze the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of the Las Vegas cit ...

, perhaps the least likely subject for a serious research project imaginable. In 1972, Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour published the folio, ''A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas.'' It was revised using the student work as a foil for new theory, and reissued in 1977 as ''Learning from Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form''. This second manifesto was an even more stinging rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes. The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed," descriptions of the two predominant ways of embodying iconography in buildings. The work of Venturi, Scott Brown, and

John Rauch John Rauch (August 20, 1927 – June 10, 2008), also known by his nickname Johnny Rauch, was an American football player and coach. He was head coach of the Oakland Raiders in the team's loss to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II in early 1 ...

adopted the latter strategy, producing formally simple "decorated sheds" with rich, complex, and often shocking ornamental flourishes. Venturi and his wife co-wrote several more books at the end of the century, but these two have so far proved to be the most influential.

Architecture

The architecture of Robert Venturi, although perhaps not as familiar today as his books, helped redirect American architecture away from a widely practiced modernism in the 1960s to a more exploratory design approach that openly drew lessons from architectural history and responded to the everyday context of the American city. Venturi's buildings typically juxtapose architectural systems, elements and aims, to acknowledge the conflicts often inherent in a project or site. This "inclusive" approach contrasted with the typical modernist effort to resolve and unify all factors in a complete and rigidly structured—and possibly less functional and more simplistic—work of art. The diverse range of buildings of Venturi's early career offered surprising alternatives to then current architectural practice, with "impure" forms (such as the North Penn Visiting Nurses Headquarters), apparently casual asymmetries (as at the Vanna Venturi House), and pop-style supergraphics and geometries (for instance, the Lieb House). Espicopal Acad int

Venturi created the firm Venturi and Short with William Short in 1960. In his architectural design Venturi was influenced by early masters such as

and

Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of t ...

, and modern masters including

and

. After John Rauch replaced Short as partner in 1964, the firm's name changed to Venturi and Rauch. Venturi married Denise Scott Brown on July 23, 1967, in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

, and in 1969, Scott Brown joined the firm as partner in charge of planning. In 1980, The firm's name became Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown, and after Rauch's resignation in 1989, Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates. The firm, based in

Manayunk, Philadelphia Manayunk ( ) is a neighborhood in the section of Lower Northwest Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania. Located adjacent to the neighborhoods of Roxborough and Wissahickon and also on the banks of the Schuylkill River, Manayunk contains the fi ...

, was awarded the Architecture Firm Award by the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...

in 1985. The practice's recent work includes many commissions from academic institutions, including campus planning and university buildings, and civic buildings in London,

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

, and Japan. Venturi's architecture has had worldwide influence, beginning in the late 1960s with the dissemination of the broken-gable roof of the Vanna Venturi House and the segmentally arched window and interrupted string courses of Guild House. The playful variations on vernacular house types seen in the Trubeck and Wislocki Houses offered a new way to embrace, but transform, familiar forms. The facade patterning of the Oberlin Art Museum and the laboratory buildings demonstrated a treatment of the vertical surfaces of buildings that is both decorative and abstract, drawing from vernacular and historic architecture while still being modern. Venturi's work arguably provided a key influence at important times in the careers of architects

Robert A. M. Stern Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern (born May 23, 1939), is a New York City–based architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, also known a ...

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a r ...

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

Michael Graves Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, as well as principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Gr ...

, Graham Gund and James Stirling, among others. Venturi was a Fellow of the

, the

, The American Academy of Arts and Letters and an Honorary Fellow of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

Death

Venturi died on September 18, 2018, in Philadelphia from complications of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...

. He was 93. In the wake of Venturi's death,

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for '' The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has repo ...

, the current architecture critic for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', tweeted..."RIP the great, inspiring Robert Venturi who opened millions of eyes and whole new ways of thinking about the richness of our architectural environment, and whose diverse work with Denise Scott Brown contains a mix of wit and humanity that continues to transcend labels and time".

Notable students

Venturi's notable students include Amy Weinstein and Peter Corrigan.

Selected works

Vanna Venturi House The Vanna Venturi House, one of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture movement, is located in the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was designed by architect Robert Venturi fo ...

; Philadelphia (1964) won the AIA

Twenty-five Year Award The Twenty-five Year Award is an architecture prize awarded each year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to "a building that has set a precedent for the last 25 to 35 years and continues to set standards of excellence for its architect ...

and was recognized as a "Masterwork of Modern American Architecture" by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

in May 2005. * Guild House; Philadelphia (1964) * The Lieb House located in Barnegat Light, New Jersey was designed by Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown and built in 1967. It is best known for the huge number 9 on its front, and the sailboat-shaped window on one side. A

Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18t ...

couple purchased this home in early March 2009 for just $1 to save it from demolition, paying at least $100,000 to move it on a barge to Glen Cove, Long Island. * Fire Station #4;

Columbus, Indiana Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 50,474 at the 2020 census. The relatively small city has provided a unique place for noted Modern architecture and public art, commissio ...

(1968) * Hartford Stage;

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

(1968) * Trubek and Wislocki Houses;

Nantucket, Massachusetts Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachus ...

(1971) * Brant House;

Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich (, ) is a town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast, Greenwich is home to many hedge funds and othe ...

(1972) * Dixwell Fire Station, New Haven, CT (1974) *

Allen Memorial Art Museum The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art. Overview The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed a ...

modern addition,

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of highe ...

; Oberlin, Ohio (1976) * BASCO Showroom; Philadelphia (1976) * Franklin Court; Philadelphia (1976) * Best Products Catalog Showroom; Langhorne, Pennsylvania (1978) * Western Plaza, later renamed to Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C. (1980) * The Park Regency Terrace Residences, later renamed to Park Regency Condominium

Houston Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

(1981) * Coxe-Hayden House and Studio; Block Island,

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

(1981) * Abrams House; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1982) * Gordon Wu Hall;

, New Jersey (1983) * House in

New Castle, Delaware New Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The city is located six miles (10 km) south of Wilmington and is situated on the Delaware River. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 5,285. History New Castl ...

(1983) * Lewis Thomas Laboratory,

, New Jersey (1986) * House in East Hampton,

(1990) * Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Medical Research Laboratories,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

; Los Angeles, California (1991) * Sainsbury Wing,

National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director of ...

; United Kingdom (1991) * Seattle Art Museum; Seattle, Washington (1991) * Restoration of the

Fisher Fine Arts Library The Fisher Fine Arts Library was the primary library of the University of Pennsylvania from 1891 to 1962. The red sandstone, brick-and- terra-cotta Venetian Gothic giant—part fortress and part cathedral—was designed by the acclaimed ...

, University of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia (1991) *

Children's Museum Children's museums are institutions that provide exhibits and programs to stimulate informal learning experiences for children. In contrast with traditional museums that typically have a hands-off policy regarding exhibits, children's museums feat ...

;

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

(1992) * Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Library,

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...

; Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (1994) *

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...

, Trabant Student Center (1996) *

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. La Jolla is surrounded on ...

; California (1996) *

Mielparque Mielparque (メルパルク ''Meruparuku'') is a Japanese hotel chain. Mielparque operates hotels throughout Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four larg ...

Nikko Kirifuri Resort; Nikko National Park, Japan (1997) * Gonda (Goldschmied) Neurosciences and Genetics Research Center,

; Los Angeles, California (1998) * Provincial Capitol Building; Toulouse, France (1999) *

Frist Campus Center Frist Campus Center is a focal point of social life at Princeton University. The campus center is a combination of the former Palmer Physics Lab, and a modern addition completed in 2001. It was endowed with money from the fortune the Frist family ...

, Princeton University; New Jersey (2000) * Rauner Special Collections Library,

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

; Hanover, New Hampshire (2000) * Perelman Quadrangle, University of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia (2000) *

Baker Memorial Library The Baker-Berry Library is the main library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The fresco, '' The Epic of American Civilization'', was painted by José Clemente Orozco in the lower level of the library, and is a National Histori ...

, Dartmouth College; Hanover, New Hampshire (2002) *

Dumbarton Oaks Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and garden of wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife, ...

Library,

; Washington, D.C. (2005) * Undergraduate Science Building, Life Sciences Institute and Palmer Commons complex,

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

; Ann Arbor, Michigan (2005) * Biomedical Biological Science Research Building (BBSRB), University of Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky (2005) * Congregation Beth El Synagogue - Sunbury, PA. (2007) *

Chapel; Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (2008)

Awards

*Fellow, American Academy in Rome; 1954-1956 * AIA Medal for ''Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture''; 1978 *

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

in the

, 1978 * AIA Architecture Firm Award, to Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown; 1985 * Commendatore of the Order of Merit, Republic of Italy; 1986 * AIA

to the

; 1989 * Elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

; 1990 * The

Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

; 1991 *

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and arts patrons ...

, United States Presidential Award; 1992 (with Denise Scott Brown) * Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Republique Française, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; 2000 *

Vincent Scully Prize The Vincent Scully Prize was established in 1999 to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship or criticism in architecture, historic preservation and urban design. Created by the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., the award first honored ...

National Building Museum The National Building Museum is located at 401 F Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning". It was created by an act of Congress in 1980, and is a private non-profit i ...

; 2002 (with Denise Scott Brown) *Elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

; 2006 * Design Mind Award, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards; 2007 (with Denise Scott Brown) * AIA Gold Medal (with Denise Scott Brown) 2016

Writings

* * * *

References

External links

''Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.'' firm web site

Online profile of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.

* ttp://www.archinomy.com/blog/robert-venturi-and-denise-scott-brown.html Design Strategies of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown* * *
Robert Venturi interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venturi, Robert 1925 births 2018 deaths Architects from Philadelphia Architecture educators Architectural theoreticians American architecture critics American male non-fiction writers American people of Italian descent Architecture firms based in Pennsylvania Fellows of the American Institute of Architects Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Postmodern architects Princeton University School of Architecture alumni Pritzker Architecture Prize winners United States National Medal of Arts recipients University of Pennsylvania faculty Urban theorists Members of the American Philosophical Society Preservationist architects Episcopal Academy alumni Recipients of the AIA Gold Medal