Vanna Venturi House,

a Symbol and a House.

Hunter Harwell

Professor Ufuk

ARCH 6990

Narrative Architecture

Clemson University

Fall 2020
 THE ARCHITECT(S)

Now that the character of the client is known,

one must understand who the architect or in this
case architects to better understand the design
design decisions in the project. Most of the cred-
it of the design of the Vanna Venturi house is giv-
en to Robert Venturi whereas many of the ideas
of this house comes from his wife and partner
Dennise Scott Brown.

Robert Venturi was born on June 25, 1925 and

later studied at The University of Pennsylvannia
under the famous architect Louis Khan. There at
the university in 1960 is Robert Venturi and De-
nise Scott Brown had met and at that time they
were both teachers. Denise was born on Octo-
ber 6, 1931. When they met Robert had already
designing plans for his mother’s house in which
This is the story of the Vanna Venturi House. he would dissapear for weeks at a time.

In the process of creating this house Robert wrote

THE CLIENT the book Complexity and Contradiction in Ar-
chitecture. This book took several iterations and
It starts off in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, the main editor was Denise Scott Brown. Due
Pennsylvannia. Robert Venturi an architect to the number of times the book was rewritten
wanted to design a house for his mother Denise decided to remove her name from the
book prior to publication due to the book being
Vanna Venturi.
a failure in her eyes. Later the two did coauthor a
When designing for a building one must book called Learning from Las Vegas along with
know who the client is. Vanna Venturi ac- a man named Steven Izenour.
cording to Robert Venturi was a socialist
and passivistVanna did not send Robert to Later in 1991, Robert Venturi was awarded the
public school but instead homeschooled Pritzker Prize which brought up major conten-
tions later on with the public because many be-
him because she did not her boy to be
lieved that Denise Scott Brown deserved to have
forced to pledge allegiance to a govern- shared that award and felt that her treatment
ment authority. was sexist. Later in 2012 Robert Venturi retired of
old age and passed on in 2018 and Dennise
In the photo to the right one may see that Scott Brown still publishes their works.
Vanna Venturi is on her front porch look-
ing out about her driveway. This became Robert Venturi coined the phrase, “Less is a
Bore” in response to Mies Van Der Rohe’s “Less
a habit of hers because many people
is More.” This quote from Mies described the
over the world would come by to see her modern agenda of having strict rules in struc-
house. Many being architects and his- ture and facade to maximize space. This leads
torians wanting to see the first ever Post to uninteresting facades that do not relate to the
Modern building. majority of people who are more complex in
nature.
 THE DESIGN

The Vanna Venturi house was constructed in 1962 and finished in 1964. Prior to this was
the design process. Before deciding on a final design there were 6 major iterations prior.
In architecture typically buildings are not built from the inital sketches. Typically there are
many iterations, sketches, models, and shop drawings are involved in the process. In these
“You cannot paint a modern home green.” Iterations they all share certain characteristics such as an emphasis on the chimney, use of
Marcel Brayer, Modern Architect: ornamentation which was a contrast from modernism, and layered facades.

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (RV and DSB) were inspired in some ways by Le
Corbusier’s Villa Savoye for its outer ring is a facade with the complexities of the architec-
ture are mainly in the interiror where the livelihood of the builiding is.

Robert Venturi self proclaims himself a pervert in the video interview in which he goes on
to explain that he takes the best parts of each classical and modern architecture and cre-
ates something new. Some examples of design decisions that went against the modern
normatives were using a square window instead of ribbon windows, wood trim as orna-
mentation, and painted the house green.

The building is located at Chesnut Hill a subdivision in Pittsburg. This neighboorhood is

important because Louis Khan designed the Margaret Esherick House (image bottom
middle) prior to the Vanna Venturi House conception in 1959 and finished in 1962. This
building allowed for a dialge between Venturi’s Post Modern house and Louis Khan’s
modern home in a postcolonial neighboorhood all with pitched roofs.
 FLOOR PLANS
SECTIONS These drawings are the floor plans of the building as well
The previous drawings were design as a digital model that was made to replicate the building
elevations. The elevation picture on the and its spaces. The bottom left drawing shows the flexible
top right is there to help give a visual nature of design where no single line may always stay. Due
reference to help understand the sec- to Vanna Venturi being 70 at the time of the design process,
tion cuts. A section is a drawing that it was important to Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
shows the internal space in compari- to design all the spaces that Vanna directly needed would
son to the exterial space. be on the bottom floor.

Whereas the upper spaces would be for guests or for

In these sections there are contradic- Vanna’s caretaker. The spaces on the bottom floor were
tions to modern architecture in that the kitchen, dining room, living room, master bedroom and
there are pitched roofs, no floor to bathroom as well as the staircase that wrapped the central
ceiling windows, a curved ceiling, and fireplace. Upstairs was a studio bedroom, stairs that go no
the structue of the interior is not por- where and a balcony for viewing the back yard.
trayed on the facades of the building.
Also seen in these section drawings is As seen in the floor plans Robert Venturi took from his mentor
the chimney is center of the house and Louis Khan and had angled walls in the living room to not
is considered the hearth or the liveli- only create perspective but to give a sense of inbetween
hood of the house. wall spaces as seen in classical architecture but to also to
link all the service spaces to one side of the building.
 THE ENTRY
THE KITCHEN
To truly understand a building and its story is to visually experience the space. The following few slides are using documented photos from publications about the Vanna House
alongside the digital model.
As one would be after a long day’s of work, they would enter into the kitchen for a snack or to whip up some dinner. The square windows mimiced that of a ribbon window to
When entering the building one sees the center staircase that wraps the fireplace and gets a glimpse of the living room and dining room. The stairs are odd and well designed. allow for strong natural light to come into the space. The counters were made of marble and the entry door is curved. This created a an opportunity to have curved cabinents and
The stairs are odd in that they start with a smaller stair run and widen out as you go up. Yet at the center of the stair it meets the fireplace so the stairs narrow and slide to the a slanting counter. In the kitchen the windows have drop down scroll blinds that contradict the ones that are in the upstairs bedroom.
left as wraps the fireplace.
During this era of design it was commonplace for kitchens to be closed off from the dining room to seperate the help or the women from the living space. In this scenario it was to
In doing this the asymettrical stairs help provide internal symmetry as seen in the plan drawing below. Also one may notice that there are no handrails as this would one, dis- seperate Vanna Venturi and her family from the help
courage Vanna Venturi from using them as well as provide no visual disruption as one walks up the staircase.
 THE DINING ROOM

Now it is time for dinner and gathering in the dining room. This
space highlights one of the more interesting ceiling conditions in
the house. The angle pitched roof intersects with the vaulted win-
dow from the bedroom above thus allowing light into the upper
portion of the dining room as seen in the bottom right photo. The
image on the upper left is a view from the entry looking towards
the dining room in the direction of the back yard. T
THE LIVING ROOM

he upper right view is a view of the digital model llooking from

the living room through the dining room in the direction of the side After a hearty meal with her son and his wife, Vanna Venturi would spend her evenings in the living room which hosts the most important design element of the house, the chimney.
porch. This wall inparticular has sliding doors while other doors in In this design the chimney is the hearth of the house which is also considered to be the symbol of the house. On the floor one can see the living room has a wooden floor that sep-
the house have standard hinges. As seen in the upper left image arates the dining room from the kitchen. In the video interviews, Denise Scott Brown refers to this a street that runs through the house. This materiality also allows for easy cleaning
there were spaces for six people. The head seats one for Vanna, in the dining room due to the nature of food spillage.
and her deceased husband, two for Robert Venturi and Denise
Scott Brown and two guests. The stairs in this space become whimisical due to its shape as it widens as it goes up provides a sense of invitation yet in some places compress, and some areas are there to
provide a space to carry up items later in the day (where the picture frame is on the staircase).
 THE UPSTAIRS BED ROOM

THE MASTER BED ROOM This is where Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown stayed the first few years after
the building was built.
This is where Vanna Venturi slept.
The defining elements of the upstairs bedroom were the arched glass wall with dual
doors in the middle and the stairs that go no where that will be mentioned later in this
Looking at the big picture, the Vanna Venturi House was designed from of a vast collection of parts that masters balance through a careful use of contradiction and inclusion. The Vanna text. The blinds were scroll blinds that were mounted to the bottom of the window sill
Venturi House elements coexist and compliment one other by contradicticting each other; this house masters a elaborate accord that rivals the simplistic, strict modern values that Venturi instead of the top like in most buildings today. This contradicts the norms in architec-
dissagreed with. The Vanna Venturi House is a example of a design that borrows several contradictory parts and pieces in order to master a more whole visual image in its aesthetics, ture today but still serves the purpose of this particular window because the blinds
alonge with it being culturally and psychologically significant a little over half a century after the project was finished. would not easily roll down the glass and still maintain the arch shape.
 THE STAIRS TO NOWHERE

“nowhere stair…is like a ladder

THE FRONT FACADE
against a wall from which to wash the high win-
dow and paint the clerestory.”
Robert Venturi
“...I speak of a complex and contracdictory ar-
(Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture)
chitecture based on the richness and ambiguity
of modern experience, including that experience
which is inherent in art.”
-Robert Venturi
Here the steps serve a function of moving vertical
(Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture)
yet here the form of the stair serves as the sym-
bolism of the duck and the shed due to the stated
In art there are two ways a piece can be com-
function above. This concept comes from Robert
prised on a canvas: assymetrical and symmet-
Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s book: Learning
rical. Here as seen above the number of win-
from Las Vegas.
dows on either side of the center line both have
5 square windows, however the orientation are
different, The chimney is offset to the left of the
Venturi here strongly believed architecture should
center line.
be used as “a sign (rather than space) for a Man-
nerist (rather than expressionist) time.”
This design decision was created to make a
Architecture as Signs and Systems for a
sense of ambiguity in the facade. With the center
Mannerist Time
gap of the facade creates this dialogue of two
seperate house pieces coming together yet only
visually touching by the center beam above Van-
na Venturi’s head.

Another symbol seen in this project is the arch.

The arch in ancient architecture signified an entry.
In this case the keystone at the apex of the arch
is removed to show contradiction to that symbol
along with making the entry portal a square in-
stead of an arch.

The scale of the facade is larger than normal res-

idential architecture. This scale was intended for
blending the residential scale and commercial
scale and also allowing the facade to breathe
visually instead of being too busy.

“counterbalance the complexity” to avoid “busy-

ness.”
Robert Venturi
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
 PAUL RICOEUR

HERMENEUTICS:
An object which seemed to be both as broad as precise as possible, I mean the SYMBOL.

METAPHOR:

0 Is a trope, a figure of discourse that cocerns denomination.

0 It represents the extension of meaning of a name through deviation from the literal meaning of words.
0 The reason for this deviation is resemblance.
0 The function of resemblance is to ground the substitution of the figurative meaning of a word in place of the literal meaning, which could have been used in the same place.
0 Hence the substituted signification does not represent any semantic innovation. We can translate a metaphor, i.e., replace the lireral meaning or which the figurative word is a substitue. in effect,
substitution plus restitiution equals zero.
0 Since it does not represent a semantic innovation, a metaphor does not furnish any new information about reality. This is why it can be counted as one of the emotive functions of discourse.

SYMBOL:

SEMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS
0 Symbols only gives rise to thought if it gives rise to speech
0 Symbols have the affinity for language
0 It is possible to identify the semantic kernel characteristic of every symbol on the basis of the structure of meaning operative in metaphorical utterances
0 The metaphorical functioning of language will allow us to isolate the non-linguistic stratum of symbols, the principle of its dissemination through a method of contrast.
0 This new understanding of symbols will give rise further developments in the theory of metaphor, which would otherwise remain concealed.

NONSEMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS
0 which lend themselves to linguistic and logical analysis in terms of signification and interpretation
0 and overlap the corresponding traits of metaphors. It resists any linguistic, semantic, or logical transcription

A CHILD’S HOUSE HOW THIS RELATES BACK TO THE VANNA VENTURI NARRATIVE
At some point in time in almost every child’s life one is asked to draw one’s house. As seen in the upper three Venturi refers to archetypal parts of classical architecture within the Vanna Venturi house, but he also looks at signs in his book Learning From Las Vegas. The symbolism of the Las Vegas Strip’s architec-
images are houses drawn by children. They all have these architectural elements in common: pitched roofs, ture is refered to for its call backs to classical architecture. He, Venturi, investigates the uses of the form of a building as the sign thus a mannerist application of the sign. However, he also forms a more complete
absence of the “sign” through the metaphor of the decorated shed and the duck. Within the design of the decorated shed, “systems of space and structure are directly at the service of the programs and orna-
square windows, and flowers (as seen to the image on the left the front facade did not have flowers). ment is applied independently of them”, and the symbol is directly manifested as form in the duck.
The building was designed to have the shape of a typical iconic house but to deviate from how roofs meet
the walls, how windows relate to the facade, and the arch is to represent nonresidental architecture. The name, duck in this instance stems from the New England restaurant that is quite frankly shaped like an actual duck. For the case of this building, the shape acts as a sign of program, but the program
does not fully coinside with the interior. Decorated sheds lend themselves to be a big box, such as major retail stores, in which the signs exist only as a false facade applied to the exterior and the form adheres-
As architects, people design to meet the needs of the individual yet due to commerialism and the ability to to function almost directly due to them being large warehouses. Venturi furthers this notion of contradictory nature of the design by creating a form with space informed by its signs of the facade as well as its
function of being a house.
mass produce people tend to have copy and pasted homes with different exteriors. This begs the question
and challenge for architects: How should your building and facade be read? As architects, the goal of designing a space should not be to create a duck or a decorated shed. The goal is to create spaces that directly relate to the user or the client to meet the needs of them while
also adhering to the surrounding context and the local and international codes of safety.
 Sources

TEXT SOURCES

Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: “The Museum of
Modern Art, New York, 2002)

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown Architecture as Signs and Systems for a Mannerist Time,
(New York, Belknap, 2004), 45

Venturi, R., Brown, D. S., & Izenour, S. (2017). Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Paul Ricoeur. “Metaphor and Symbol,” in Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of
Meaning (Fort Worth, TX: Christian University Press, 1976), 45-69.

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https://www.archdaily.com/62743/ad-classics-vanna-venturi-house-robert-venturi

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mWDFWSnp3TWlNVEEwTGdBQUFBQ1U2Sk5hBGZyA21jYWZlZQRmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDUWpKTGxHQlhUeXVoNWtaNV9CSDBRQQRuX3JzbHQDNjAEbl9zdWdnAzAEb3JpZ2luA3ZpZGVvLnNlYXJjaC55YWh-
vby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDNDIEcXVlcnkDcm9iZXJ0JTIwVmVudHVyaSUyMHlvdXR1YmUlMjB2YW5uYSUyMGhvdXNlBHRfc3RtcAMxNjA2MjU1ODQ4?p=robert+Venturi+youtube+vanna+-
house&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&fr=mcafee#id=1&vid=acce128f65c03ca86c2d59e3bd799bdd&action=view

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mWDFWSnp3TWlNVEEwTGdBQUFBQ1U2Sk5hBGZyA21jYWZlZQRmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDUWpKTGxHQlhUeXVoNWtaNV9CSDBRQQRuX3JzbHQDNjAEbl9zdWdnAzAEb3JpZ2luA3ZpZGVvLnNlYXJjaC55YWh-
vby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDNDIEcXVlcnkDcm9iZXJ0JTIwVmVudHVyaSUyMHlvdXR1YmUlMjB2YW5uYSUyMGhvdXNlBHRfc3RtcAMxNjA2MjU1ODQ4?p=robert+Venturi+youtube+vanna+-
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