ROBERT VENTURI

AMERICAN POST MODERN ARCHITECT.

A WRITER, PHILOSOPHER , ARTIST , TEACHER AND AN

ARCHITECT.
“MODERN MASTER’S STRENGTH LAYS IN CONSISTENCY ,OURS SHOULD BE IN DIVERSITY.”

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTIONS WERE HIS PRINCIPLES.

“LESS IS A BORE” ,HE STATED – “I AM FOR RICHNESS RATHER THAN CLARITY OF MEANING”

IN HIS BUILDINGS, WE CAN SEE AMBIGUITY OVER UNITY AND CONTRADICTION OVER HARMONY AND
SIMPLICITY.
IT IS BETTER TO BE GOOD THAN TO BE ORIGINAL

DESIGNERS MUST BE PREPARED TO LEARN MORE FROM COPYING.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING BASIC THAT YOU EITHER BUILD ON EVOLVE FROM OR REVOLT
AGAINST.
 HISTORIC ELEMENTS ENLIVEN CONTEMPAORARY FORMS

By decorating his facades, sometimes using brick in jaunty patterns, he helped the colleges bridge the gap between historic
buildings (like Princeton’s Gothic dormitories) and the spare, boxy forms that had become the 20th-century default.
 He and Scott Brown were known for their addition to the
National Gallery in London, which opened in 1991 .The
building featured Corinthian columns arranged at uneven
intervals, like a jazz musician riffing on classical themes.

Rejected a simplistic replication of the past in favor of designs that SAINSBERY WING
make highly studied comments on other styles -- more stimulating
intellectually, but less likely to provoke a comfortable visceral response.
The Abrams House similarly breaks from conventional
symmetry
 CHILDREN;S MUSEUM AT HOUSTON,TEXAS

Exaggerated architectural ornament, exaggerated facades,

unusual juxtapositions of the formal and the ordinary and of
the modern and the classical
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM,SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE
VINCENT SCULLY-”THE BIGGEST SMALL BUILDING OF SECOND
HALF OF 20TH CENTURY”
MONUMENTAL FRONT FAÇADE , "a child's drawing of a house."
VIEW FROM REAR END (SOUTH)

Two vertical elements — the fireplace-chimney and

the stair — compete, as it were, for central position.

And each of these elements, one essentially solid,

the other essentially void, compromises in its shape
and position
VIEW FROM THE SIDE (SOUTHEAST)
The building recognizes complexities and contradictions
The chimney is emphasized by the centrally placed room on the second floor, but
the actual chimney is small and off-center. The effect is to magnify the scale of the
small house and make the facade appear to be monumental.
Unusually, the gable is placed on the long side of the rectangle
formed by the house, and there is no matching gable at the
rear.
The central chimney and staircase dominate the interior of the
house.
SECTION
ROOM INTERIOR
PLANS
The house features a pitched roof topped by an oversized
chimney
A square opening creates a sheltered doorway in the
centre of the facade
A vertical slit divides the facade The staircase wraps around the central fireplace
The dining room boasts a marble floor Staircase view
The attic bedroom features an arched window
Many of the basic elements of the house are a reaction against standard Modernist architectural elements: the
pitched roof rather than flat roof, the emphasis on the central hearth and chimney, a closed ground floor "set
firmly on the ground" rather than the Modernist columns and glass walls which open up the ground floor.