'Learning From Las Vegas' | Notes

Venturi, R. (1972) 'Learning From Las Vegas', Massachussetts: MIT Press.

TONE? | Venturi seems to have a positive view of the eclectic architecture present in Las Vegas. Throughout the text, he criticises those that hold narrow, rigid views of what architecture should be and adhere to, and appears to see this specific type of architecture as a reflection of the times and the world we live in.

Venturi also criticises architects for not creating structures that reflect the wants and needs of the everyday people using them, instead of catering to their own visions.

pg 3. 'Early Modern architects appropriated an existing and conventional industrial vocabulary without much adaptation'

'Le Corbusier loved grain elevators and steamships; the Bauhaus looked like a factory; Mies refined the details of American steel factories for concrete buildings'

• Modernist architecture was heavily influenced by and took reference from industrial structures - relating back to themes of mass-production, capitalism..

Las Vegas Strip, 1965, Denise Scott Brown

pg 6. Modern architecture has 'rejected the combination of fine art and crude art'

pg 8. 'critics have slighted a continuing iconology in popular commercial art, the persuasive heraldry that pervades our environment from the advertising pages of The New Yorker to the superbillboards of Houston'

'Those who acknowledge this roadside eclecticism denigrate it, because it flaunts the cliché of a decade ago as well as the style of a century ago. But why not? Time travels fast today'

• Critics dislike this kitschy, 'dated' mix of architectural styles because it isn't timeless, uptopian, classic, pure. Venturi criticises this view, and asks 'does it matter?' Time passes quickly, styles and trends fade, and it is a struggle to keep up with this.

'The Miami Beach Modern motel on a bleak stretch of highway in southern Delaware reminds jaded drivers of the welcome luxury of a tropical resort'

• Re-appropriates, lends the 'international stylishness of a Brazilian resort' to conjure feelings, tones, atmospheres unlike any other.

'...the-neo-Eclectic architecture of the 1940s and 1950s, is less interesting than its commercial adaptations'

'Roadside copies of Ed Stone are more interesting that the real Ed Stone'

pg 13. Regarding highway signs and the commercial landscape: 'They make verbal and symbolic connections through space, communicating a complexity of meanings through hundreds of associations in few seconds from far away'

'Symbol dominates space. Architecture is not enough'

'The big sign and the little building is the rule of Route 66'

'This is reflected in the proprietor's budget. The sign at the front is a vulgar extravaganza, the building at the back, a modest necessity'

The Strip, 1968, Venturi & Scott Brown