Learning from Las Vegas, revised edition

The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form

By: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour

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Paperback | 15 June 1977 | Edition Number 2

At a Glance

Paperback
208 Pages

Edition Type
Revised

Age
18+

Dimensions(cm)
21 x 14 x 2

Paperback

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$52.80

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Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments.

This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.

Industry Reviews

"...these studies are brilliant...the kind of art history and theory that is rarely produced." - Ada Louis Huxtable, The New York Times

"...professionally informed, competitively astute, and perversely brilliant... " - The Yale Review

" ...a brilliant document of the times...a work which uses history knowledgeably, skillfully, and creatively: a rarity." - Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

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Preface to the First Edition	p. xi
Preface to the Revised Edition	p. xv
A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas
A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas	p. 3
Commercial Values and Commercial Methods	p. 3
Billboards Are Almost All Right	p. 6
Architecture as Space	p. 6
Architecture as Symbol	p. 7
Symbol in Space before Form in Space: Las Vegas as a Communication System	p. 8
The Architecture of Persuasion	p. 9
Vast Space in the Historical Tradition and at the A&P	p. 13
From Rome to Las Vegas	p. 18
Maps of Las Vegas	p. 19
Main Street and the Strip	p. 19
System and Order on the Strip	p. 20
Change and Permanence on the Strip	p. 34
The Architecture of the Strip	p. 34
The Interior Oasis	p. 49
Las Vegas Lighting	p. 49
Architectural Monumentality and the Big Low Space	p. 50
Las Vegas Styles	p. 50
Las Vegas Signs	p. 51
Inclusion and the Difficult Order	p. 52
Image of Las Vegas: Inclusion and Allusion in Architecture	p. 53
Studio Notes	p. 73
Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed
Some Definitions Using The Comparative Method	p. 87
The Duck and the Decorated Shed	p. 88
Decoration on the Shed	p. 89
Explicit and Implicit Associations	p. 90
Heroic and Original, or Ugly and Ordinary	p. 91
Ornament: Signs and Symbols, Denotation and Connotation, Heraldry and Physiognomy, Meaning and Expression	p. 92
Is Boring Architecture Interesting?	p. 93
Historical And Other Precedents: Towards An Old Architecture	p. 104
Historical Symbolism and Modern Architecture	p. 104
The Cathedral as Duck and Shed	p. 105
Symbolic Evolution in Las Vegas	p. 106
The Renaissance and the Decorated Shed	p. 106
Nineteenth-Century Eclecticism	p. 107
Modern Ornament	p. 114
Ornament and Interior Space	p. 115
The Las Vegas Strip	p. 116
Urban Sprawl and the Megastructure	p. 117
Theories Of Ugly And Ordinary And Related And Contrary Theories	p. 128
Origins and Further Definition of Ugly and Ordinary	p. 128
Ugly and Ordinary as Symbol and Style	p. 129
Against Ducks, or Ugly and Ordinary over Heroic and Original, or Think Little	p. 130
Theories of Symbolism and Association in Architecture	p. 131
Firmness + Commodity Does Not Equal Delight: Modern Architecture and the Industrial Vernacular	p. 134
Industrial Iconography	p. 135
Industrial Styling and the Cubist Model	p. 136
Symbolism Unadmitted	p. 137
Form La Tourette to Neiman-Marcus	p. 138
Slavish Formalism and Articulated Expressionism	p. 138
Articulation as Ornament	p. 139
Space as God	p. 148
Megastructures and Design Control	p. 148
Misplaced Technological Zeal	p. 150
Which Technological Revolution?	p. 151
Preindustrial Imagery for a Postindustrial Era	p. 151
From La Tourette to Levittown	p. 152
Silent-White-Majority Architecture	p. 154
Social Architecture and Symbolism	p. 155
High-Design Architecture	p. 161
Summary	p. 162
Appendix: On Design Review Boards And Fine Arts Commissions	p. 164
Bibliography	p. 167
Credits	p. 190
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Learning from Las Vegas, revised edition

The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

More in Architecture

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Resident Dog

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Country Style

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Arent & Pyke

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The New Queensland House

Gunyah Goondie + Wurley

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Home by the Sea

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Australia Modern

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