Archinect - News

Denise Scott Brown says she's not pleased with Selldorf Architects' Sainsbury Wing redesign

2022-11-28T15:19:00-05:00

A considerable row has sprung up concerning Selldorf Architects' controversial revamp of the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing after one of its original co-designers, Denise Scott Brown, made comments over the weekend indicating a disagreement and lack of support for the currently under-review proposal.

"She’s making our building look like a circus clown," Scott Brown told The Guardian's James Tapper without elaborating on which specific elements the already widely-opposed plans she has an issue with. "There are elements of tragedy – circus clowns are made up to look happy, but they’re not. This is a circus clown wearing a tutu."

Selldorf had previously mentioned in an April New York Times preview of her MOCA San Diego makeover and in another Architects Journal update from August that she had spoken with Scott Brown about both projects. During our coverage of the Sainsbury Wing in October, Seldorf said, "she has been counseled by the wing's original co-architect Denise Scott Brown ...

Selldorf unveils revised Sainsbury Wing plan in response to critical backlash

2022-10-21T09:00:00-04:00

Selldorf Architects has released a revised plan for the controversial overhaul of the Sainsbury Wing at London’s National Gallery following a torrent of criticism that has grown online after their initial designs were unveiled this summer.

The Architects’ Journal is reporting on the revisions, which appear to have entailed the retention of certain ground floor elements in the lobby and changes to the originally proposed placement of existing structural columns, as well as to the materials used in the balustrade and lobby walls.

Image courtesy Selldorf Architects

"I don't think of these changes as a compromise. I see them as a welcome development," Annabelle Selldorf told AJ. "In the resubmitted plans, much more of the existing fabric will remain, creating a clearer dialogue with the original building. And yet the original goals remain intact."

Image courtesy Selldorf Architects

"I took from this reaction hat people truly care about the building. And when when you perceive that, you ha...

Denise Scott Brown remembers John Rauch, long-time partner and influential driver of postmodernism, who passed away aged 91

2022-08-25T12:18:00-04:00

An influential figure in the development of American postmodernism has been lost after news that former Venturi, Scott Brown partner John Rauch passed away in Philadelphia last week.

Rauch was born and raised in the city and educated at Wesleyan University and UPenn before entering the profession following his service in the U.S. Army. He was an early champion of the work of his partner Robert Venturi and would, through their combined efforts under the then-moniker Venturi and Rauch, contribute to formative projects including the influential Vanna Venturi house and Fire Station #4 that defined the scope and trajectory of architecture for another thirty years.

Fire Station #4 in Columbus, Indiana. Image courtesy Library of Congress

The practice continued to evolve after the addition of Denise Scott Brown in 1969 and publication of Learning from Las Vegas in 1972. Rauch would again be instrumental in the selection of major higher-ed commissions for Yale, Princeton, and Ohio State Unive...

Rowan Moore issues a blow to the Selldorf-led Sainsbury Wing redevelopment

2022-06-23T09:00:00-04:00

The problem is that the proposed new work is something else altogether to Venturi and Scott Brown’s playfulness and personality. It has curving glass balustrades, white walls and oak-clad pillars, and expanses of plain paving outside. It is an architecture of near-emptiness, the default style of international art-world good taste.

Moore ran through the litany of changes Annabelle Selldorf is making in replacement of the current iteration’s “bum notes,” which the critic pinned on a rift between the original expansion's benefactors and what was then called Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.

This is now the second Denise Scott Brown-designed museum that Selldorf has laid her (very capable) hands-on after the recently opened Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego revamp, which she said engendered a “greater clarity across the history of all the building types.” Moore, seizing on the difference in intrusion levels between the two similar projects, said “there could be more rapport between the current and the proposed and more cleverness and wit” before making a surprising turn to his own long-distant past.

Moore concluded, “by refusing to align themselves with any one architectural camp, trad...

Sainsbury Wing by Venturi, Scott Brown wins 2019 AIA Twenty-Five Year Award

2019-01-08T20:27:00-05:00

After no one received the prize last year, there was a more positive outcome for the AIA's Twenty-Five Year Award for 2019. Today, the AIA announced Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates' Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London as this year's recipient. Established in 1969, the annual award distinguishes a building that has gracefully stood the test of time over the last 25-35 years and “continues to set standards of excellence for its architectural design and significance”.

An extension to the historic National Gallery, the 120,000 square-foot Sainsbury Wing houses one of the world's most visited collections of early Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's practice was selected to design the project after they won the second iteration of an international competition in 1985-86. Completed in 1991, the new Sainsbury Wing sparked heated debate among modernists, postmodernists, and the general public. Some critics thought its facade wa...

As MCA San Diego plans to demolish much of Venturi Scott Brown’s 1996 extension, the architecture community petitions to save it

2018-07-30T15:29:00-04:00

Plans to expand the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, which involve demolishing part of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s 1996 addition, have come under fire as architects fight to save the beloved postmodern work. With over 70 signatures, including those of Sir Terry Farrell, Paul Goldberger, Sam Jacob, Inga Saffron, and Robert A. M. Stern, a petition recently sent to the MCA board is asking the museum to reconsider the plans in favor of an approach that is "sensitive and respectful to the village of La Jolla."

In 1996, the museum hired the celebrated Philadelphia architectural firm to create a much-needed overhaul. The result was a $9 million expansion, that provided an additional 10,000 square feet of space, and a renovation, that restored the original front facade of the Mission-style building originally designed in 1916 by Irving J. Gill. Situated on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the museum in La Jolla—described at the time by Goldberger as "an exquisite proj...

Editor's Picks #437

2015-12-16T11:51:00-05:00

Nicholas Korody penned a double review; of 'The Geological Imagination' and 'The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform'. He finds "The two books also help illuminate some of the difficulties in perceiving climate change, while offering some potentials for movement" and goes on to reference "enmeshment", systems thinking and dark ecology.

Plus, Robert Urquhart took stock of how The Bartlett and the Architectural Association are "bringing emerging technologies into the UK's architecture education".

News
Denise Scott Brown, along with her husband Robert Venturi, have won the 2016 AIA Gold Medal. Snubbed of the 1991 Pritzker Prize when Venturi was named as the only laureate, Scott Brown is the second female recipient of the Gold Medal.

In honor of the happy and historic occasion, Denise Scott Brown appeared on Archinect Sessions #45.

To DWLindeman it "is splendid good news, and a long overdue award...Robert Venturi was right to say to the AIA ‘not without Denise.’ This is also a very significan...

The Vanna Venturi House is for sale

2015-07-15T17:28:00-04:00

To the amateur eye it can be puzzling, but with some education about its juxtaposition of traditional design against more complex forms, its status as a groundbreaking residential design becomes clear.

Call for Denise Scott Brown to be given Pritzker recognition

2013-03-25T17:18:00-04:00

In a speech prepared for the AJ Women in Architecture lunch, Scott Brown called on her role in Robert Venturi’s 1991 win to be acknowledged retrospectively. Describing it as a ‘very sad’ situation, she said: ‘They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony. Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.’

Robert Venturi retires, and firm renames

2012-07-26T14:45:00-04:00

Robert Venturi, who along with his wife Denise Scott Brown formed one of Philadelphia’s best known architectural firms, has retired and the firm known as Venturi Scott Brown and Associates Inc. has been renamed VSBA.

Lieb House, Saved

2012-02-08T15:28:00-05:00

Venturi and Schwartz’s efforts would have been for naught had it not been for Deborah Sarnoff and Robert Gotkin, a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon, respectively, who bought Lieb House for a dollar and spent another $100,000 moving it to Glen Cove, N.Y., where they turned it into a guesthouse that sits across the driveway from their home on the Long Island Sound — a spacious house that Venturi and Scott Brown’s firm completed in 1985.

Saving Lieb House

2009-12-17T17:20:00-05:00

Jim Venturi, son of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, documents the re-location of the Lieb House for the film Saving Lieb House.

Jim Venturi, son of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, documents the re-location of the Lieb House (previously in the news) for the film Saving Lieb House.

When world-renowned architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown discover that their iconic pop-art creation will be demolished in ten days, they scramble to save the house as the city of New York cheers them on. Keep up to date with upcoming screenings at SAVING LIEB HOUSE facebook fanpage.

For more information go to www.savingliebhouse.com
If you like what you see, and would like to work with Jim Venturi, check out the job listing posted here on Archinect earlier this week.