Denise Scott Brown- Once The Better- Half of Robert Venturi

Architect, urban planner, and designer Denise Scott Brown is a partner in the Philadelphia firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA). But, before that she’s a photographer, a keen observer and a rebel for the profession she stepped in. Her bold and revolutionary mind questions the grounds rules and value system that Philip Johnston instigated for the Pritzker Prize, and not to miss her repudiation for modernism.

VSBA is recognized for merging design elements in unexceptional ways, an approach that has urged some to include Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown among the originators of architectural Post-modernism. Though they reject the Post- modernist label, Venturi and Scott Brown are directed by design principles that differentiate sharply with Modernism’s tendency to tidy up structures to essentials: turning the Modernist’s rallying cry “Less is more” against itself, Venturi declared “Less is a bore.”  The firm has become known for an eclecticism that draws freely from varied sources, such as historic design styles and popular culture, as well as contemporary commercial architecture and advertising.

Roots in photography, it has always been a powerful tool to express her perceptions to the world. She learned how to use a camera, not merely to document building forms, but to explore and express ideas about architecture. It helped her understand the radically different environments she stepped into as a young architect. She stopped using photography in 1968 but continued to use it in various ways among the ways of analyzing, and eventually, in design. Thereafter, she was inspired to write a book on how photography has worked along with architecture for her and the conclusion of the book that photography isn’t limited to a tool of documenting buildings, but, has become a sub-discipline of architecture. “Learning from Las Vegas”, which Denise co-authored, still remains a refreshing and significantly an important book across a number of disciplines. The book pulled together vernacular architecture of all types—from neon casino signage to duck-shaped, decorated sheds; this varied vernacular initiated a broader cultural discussion that continues in universities around the world. In the book, the authors’ argued that “modernism veiled its own symbolism and expression under the pretence of form obeying the dictates of function” — an argument that was central to the rise of postmodernism. The pictures hint at Scott Brown’s philosophies on architecture and urbanism, which were unconventional at the time. I have no scepticism in concluding that photography—not architecture—was the genesis of ideas that made her one of the most influential architects of the last century.

The creative couple’s collaboration has made a lasting impact on the field of architecture through their boundary-pushing buildings around the world. To mention a few, following are the examples in which the work proved their distinguished research-led brand of Post-modernism championed by herself and her husband Venturi.

• The Vanna Venturi House, built for Robert Venturi’s mother, was completed in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1964 and is considered one of the earliest examples of postmodern architecture. Its design explores classic forms and plays with symmetry and scale, serving as a realization of the ideas put forth in Venturi’s 1966 book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.

• VSBA collaborated with Jackson & Ryan Architects on the Children’s Museum of Houston, which was completed in 1992. The lively structure features playful interpretations of classical architecture, with a mixture of flexible spaces and room for permanent exhibitions, plus classrooms, an auditorium, an art studio, offices, and a gift shop.

• VSBA and David Singer Architect gave the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego a modern look and an additional 10,000 square feet of space in 1996. The new façade references the architecture of the historic Scripps House, the museum’s home since 1941. Within the new exterior is a theatrical lobby with a star-shaped clerestory window.

While the names of Venturi and Brown are rarely mentioned today, they are considered among the most important and gifted American Architects of the latter half of the 20th century. When Robert Venturi received the Pritzker Prize in 1991, the most prestigious award of the architecture profession, he was surprised. He thought that his wife and partner of decades, Denise Scott Brown would be invited to share the honour. His request that Scott Brown be included in their word was denied. At the ceremony he acknowledged in his words her critical contributions.

More than two decades later, students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design initiated a petition demanding that Denise Scott Brown be retroactively acknowledged for her work deserving of adjoined Pritzker Prize. The petition was signed by thousands including Zaha Hadid, the first woman who won the award. Rem Koolhaas added coming to signature writing – “the fact that one of the most creative and productive partnership we’ve ever seen in architecture was separated rather than celebrated by prize has been an embarrassing injustice”. On the note of Pritzker Prize, her demands have been simple and crystal. She doesn’t ask for the Prize, rather, not so glamorous and planned, a Pritzker-Inclusion ceremony. Today, she only anticipates for the Pritzker to salute the joint creativity in the field of Architecture.

Scott Brown speaks to and on behalf of the profession – Architects deal in dimensions of time and space and even with existence, so the need to take these 3 separately and deal with their individual importance and strengths is indispensably significant. We architect take our program from “now” and define the function of the building. If you look at Venice, the first program literally was maybe one of the 30 programs that a building has from year 800 to 2019. So, the first function of the building as described by the program is far from the only thing we should be thinking of and that’s her view of time, time in relation to function. In her comprehension, architects report only from the front and cause a lot of harm and chaos, unless, they “open a window” for further flexible development and evolution.  In order to serve, architecture should venture beyond its traditional domains, accessing other fields of knowledge and helping shape the social, cultural and political dimensions of everyday life. To endure the test of time, architects need to be ready to produce more than just buildings. This leap of faith takes curiosity, wit, and more importantly, it demands a special kind of courage for a lifetime’s worth of perseverance.