Word: venturi
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...past two decades; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. Kahn was a relatively obscure teacher until the early 1950s, when his first major design, the Yale Art Gallery, was constructed. After that, his influence-as seen in the designs of such disciples as Charles Moore and Pop Architect Robert Venturi-became enormous. Kahn was primarily concerned with principles of order and light. His work featured the use of stark, geometric shapes and an emphasis on natural light and the moods created by it. He also incorporated such traditionally concealed "servant" elements as ducts, pipes and storage space into visible design...
...Sheetrock offices, their eggbox planning, insipid detail and graceless proportions. The International Style expended itself in these shallows, not in its masterpieces. But what is the alternative? Not the culture of Vegas casinos and duck-shaped roadhouses beloved of Pop architectural theorists like Reyner Banham and Robert Venturi; trash may be language, but it remains trash. The desire for an architecture that is grand, exemplary, responsive and practical still exists. And general expectations of such an architecture have to a large extent converged on Kahn...
...Venturi's arguments in the rest of the book for the ordinary--as opposed to the heroic--in architecture as exemplified by the commercial buildings of the strip, are based on the belief that the strip, as well as places like Levittown, ultimately represent the aesthetic preferences of the middle class. And why, asks Venturi, should anyone attempt to elevate a client's value system with reference to Art or Metaphysics? Of course, Venturi knows that an architect such as I.M. pei who caters to elite tastes would never be happy on the strip. However, he assumes that everyone else...
APPARENTLY IT NEVER occurs to Venturi that most people just might not find Las Vegas very attractive. More importantly, his insistence on analyzing the strip as simply a pretty visual image leads him to exclude many of the factors that have given rise to such an environment. He relishes the effects and ignores the causes. And his pleas to the reader to let him analyze his images to the exclusion of social issues only make it harder to be lenient...
Because of this attitude of acceptance--indeed glorification--of the existing system to strip development as a perfectly legitimate middle-class aesthetic, critics have dubbed Venturi the "Nixonite" of architecture. Yet however attractive he might make the strip appear in a book whose layout is so elaborate that the price can be no lower than $25, the strip without a doubt still represents one of the ugliest environments that has ever existed. It is easy for Venturi to avoid questions such as why acres of landscape have to be covered with asphalt for parking lots, why the construction of such...