From VSBA Architects:
Trailblazing architect, and 1991 Pritzker winner, Robert Venturi has passed away on Tuesday at the age of 93. He is survived by his wife and life-long business partner Denise Scott Brown.
Their firm Venturi Scott Brown Associates, now VSBA Architects & Planners based in Philadelphia, has published a brief statement:
Robert Venturi, one of the world’s leading architects, has died at the age of 93. He passed away peacefully at home on Tuesday after a short illness.
An expanded statement about Bob’s incredible life will be coming in the next few days. For now, Denise Scott Brown and James Venturi have asked that we respect their wishes for privacy while they grieve.
All of us at VSBA are heartbroken. Viva Bob.
RIP
I was just thinking about the OMA Maison à Bordeaux — one of so many that never would have existed outside of the gravity of a post Venturi world. Proof that critical movements and change are incited from within the profession by great designers.
Though I find some of the tributes saying he “rejected Modernism” predictably simplistic by the media. Perhaps he rekindled the playful experimentation and historicism of American Modernism that had gone underground after the International Style, a bastard child of Mies, became stale at the hands of so many buerocratic city planners. He worked with Saarinen and Kahn. He brought pop art and history back into American Modernism — could even be called a Philly Critical Regionalist! Like Mediocre hacks killed classical Modernism, so too was the fate of Postmodernism — the founding fathers/mothers being Venturi, DSB, Jacobs, LeCorb, Sert, Kahn.
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dang.
RIP BOB
RIP
:( :( :(
Big loss.
The end of an era. Condolences to Denise.
RIP
I was just thinking about the OMA Maison à Bordeaux — one of so many that never would have existed outside of the gravity of a post Venturi world. Proof that critical movements and change are incited from within the profession by great designers.
Though I find some of the tributes saying he “rejected Modernism” predictably simplistic by the media. Perhaps he rekindled the playful experimentation and historicism of American Modernism that had gone underground after the International Style, a bastard child of Mies, became stale at the hands of so many buerocratic city planners. He worked with Saarinen and Kahn. He brought pop art and history back into American Modernism — could even be called a Philly Critical Regionalist! Like Mediocre hacks killed classical Modernism, so too was the fate of Postmodernism — the founding fathers/mothers being Venturi, DSB, Jacobs, LeCorb, Sert, Kahn.
Well said. I'd add Charles Moore to the list as well.
Well said indeed. Rather than reject Modernism, he opened up the pallet of acceptable aesthetic perspectives, namely those who enjoy historic styles as well as original ones. He simply reminded American Architecture that we've done some of our best work when not encumbered by stylistic silos, that the modern world is eclectic. Rest in peace, and have fun designing in heaven.
i include the non sequitur and proclaim the duality <3
Why am I dragged into this?
...and they're hiring!
"Venturi is often referred to as the father of postmodernism, but he was so much more than that. As the historian Robert Miller wrote, it is “a charge comparable to calling Thomas Edison the father of disco”."
https://www.theguardian.com/ar...
I wonder if this means that polemics in book and house form will come back in style? I need to get cracking ... or maybe just buy a prefab. Hmmm.
RIP in peace
This was saved in the nick of time.. Lieb House
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