About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-100674015711

ISBN-139780674015715

eBay Product ID (ePID)30510977

Product Key Features

Number of Pages264 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameArchitecture As Signs and Systems : for a Mannerist Time

Publication Year2004

SubjectUrban & Land Use Planning, Individual Architects & Firms / General, General, Criticism

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaArchitecture

AuthorRobert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown

SeriesThe William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight25 Oz

Item Length8.8 in

Item Width8.8 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2004-040313

Dewey Edition22

ReviewsArchitecture as Signs and Systems is based on lectures at Harvard which provided [Venturi and Scott Brown] with the opportunity to reflect on their careers...Their key achievement was to overthrow an arid modernist orthodoxy and to prepare the ground for today's pluralism. They nonetheless profess to remain wedded to a central tenet of modernism, that architecture should be appropriate to its age... But whatever qualifications or disagreements one may have, the Venturis remain among the most refreshing, inspiring, least pompous presences on an architectural scene peopled with prickly egos, whingeing prima donnas and ideologues. Their greatest virtue...is that they genuinely invite open debate on the big issues of architecture and urban design., [Venturi and Scott Brown's] new book, Architecture as Signs and Systems, is a direct challenge to architecture's increasingly tortuous quest for shapes and spaces that might give new physical meaning to that increasingly diffuse term, modernity...[Their] new polemic is a wonderfully intelligent provocation., [Venturi and Scott Brown's] new book, Architecture as Signs and Systems , is a direct challenge to architecture's increasingly tortuous quest for shapes and spaces that might give new physical meaning to that increasingly diffuse term, modernity...[Their] new polemic is a wonderfully intelligent provocation.

Series Volume Number15

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal720/.1

Table Of ContentIntroduction Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown I. Architecture as Sign rather than Space New Mannerism rather than Old Expressionism Robert Venturi 1. An Evolution of Ideas 2. Communication and Convention for an Iconographic Architecture 3. Architecture as Sign in the Work of VSBA 4. A New Mannerism, for Architecture as Sign II. Architecture as Patterns and Systems Learning from Planning Denise Scott Brown 5. Some Ideas and Their History 6. Activities as Patterns 7. The Redefinition of Functionalism 8. Context in Context 9. Essays in Context 10. Mannerism, because You Can't Follow All the Rules of All the Systems All the Time Conclusion: Signs and Sytems in a Mannerist Architecture for Today Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

SynopsisVenturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape are among the ideas they have championed. Here, they present a retrospective of their work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings., Robert Venturi exploded onto the architectural scene in 1966 with a radical call to arms in Complexity and Contradiction . Further accolades and outrage ensued in 1972 when Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (along with Steven Izenour) analyzed the Las Vegas strip as an archetype in Learning from Las Vegas . Now, for the first time, these two observer-designer-theorists turn their iconoclastic vision onto their own remarkable partnership and the rule-breaking architecture it has informed. The views of Venturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape; generic building and electronic communication are among the many ideas they have championed. Here, they present both a fascinating retrospective of their life work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings. Accessible, informative, and beautifully illustrated, Architecture as Signs and Systems is a must for students of architecture and urban planning, as well as anyone intrigued by these seminal cultural figures. Venturi and Scott Brown have devoted their professional lives to broadening our view of the built world and enlarging the purview of practitioners within it. By looking backward over their own life work, they discover signs and systems that point forward, toward a humane Mannerist architecture for a complex, multicultural society.

LC Classification NumberNA2500.V45 2004