Robert Venturi

rOBErT
vENTUrI
Modernism is about space.
Postmodernism is about
communication. You should
do what turns you on.
ROBERT VENTURI
ROBERT CHARLES VENTURI JR.
● Born – June 25,1925

● American architect, founding principal of
the firm “Venturi”, Scott Brown and
associates, and one of the major
architectural figures in the twentieth
century.
● Their buildings, planning, theoretical
writings and teaching have contributed to
the expansion of discourse about
architecture.
● Awarded the Pritzker Prize In
architecture in 1991
● Known for coining the maxim “Less Is A
Bore" a postmodern antidote to Mies Van
Der Rohe's famous modernist dictum
"Less Is More".
●His desire was never to take
architecture back literally to the
styles of the past
● Venturi's architecture has never

been driven by the desire to
replicate the past; where he uses
historical form, it is with the goal of
integrating it into a wide-ranging
and, in the end, contemporary
whole.
● His architecture seems difficult to

many people.
● It isn't particularly simple or easy,

and it isn't always pretty.
CHARACTERISTICS
● Venturi's buildings typically juxtapose
architectural systems, elements and
aims, to acknowledge the conflicts
often inherent in a project or site
● Robert Venturi is known for
incorporating stylized cultural icons into
his buildings.
● However, Venturi is recognized for
much more than postmodernist
designs.
● The firm has completed more than
400 projects, each uniquely suited to
the special needs of the clients.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHIES
● Designs are eclectic i.e. draws
inspiration from varied sources, such as
historic design styles and popular culture,
including contemporary commercial
architecture and advertising.
● Combines design elements in
unexpected ways
● Incorporates cultural icons into his
building
● Against the Modernist tendency to treat
buildings as solitary objects without
regard for their settings, he argued that a
building derives meaning from its context,
and different contexts require different
forms of architectural expression.
VANNA VENTURI
HOUSE
●PROJECT NAME : VANNA

VENTURI HOUSE
● CONSTRUCTION YEAR :
1964
● ARCHITECT : ROBERT
VENTURI
● PROJECT CATEGORY :
RESIDENTIAL
● LOCATION : 8330 MILLMAN

ST, PHILADELPHIA, USA
VANNA VENTURI HOUSE.
● One of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture
movement, is located in the neighbourhood of Chestnut hill in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
● Designed by architect Robert Venturi for his mother Vanna Venturi
● The house was sold in 1973 and remains a private residence.
● In order to create more contradiction and complexity, Venturi
experimented with scale.
● Inside the house certain elements are “too big,” such as the size of the
fireplace and the height of the mantel compared to the size of the room.
- Doors are wide and low in height, especially in contrast to the grandness
of the entrance space.
- Venturi also minimized circulation space in the design of the house, so
that it consisted of large distinct rooms with minimum subdivisions
between them.
STRUCTURAL DETAILS
•The five room house stands only about 30
feet (9 m) tall at the top of the chimney, but
has a monumental front façade.
• A non-structural appliqué arch and "hole
in the wall" windows, among other
elements, were challenge to modernist
orthodoxy.
• The house is designed around a chimney
that is centralised and goes all the way to
the top of the house.
•Externally, the house is built symmetrical.
Venturi has distorted this idea of
symmetry. •There is also a basement
underneath the house that is often not
uncovered by people.
PLAN
SECTION
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
● The basic elements of the house are a reaction against standard
modernist architectural elements:
- pitched roof rather than flat roof,
- emphasis on central hearth & chimney,
- closed ground floor "set firmly on ground" rather than modernist
columns & glass walls which open up the ground floor.
- On the front elevation the broken pediment or gable & a purely
ornamental applique arch reflect return to mannerist architecture and
a rejection of modernism.
● House is a composition of rectangular, curvilinear, and diagonal
elements coming together (or sometimes juxtaposing each other) in a
way that inarguably creates complexity and contradiction.
INTERIOR
EPISCOPAL ACADEMY
CHAPEL
●PROJECT NAME :
EPISCOPAL ACADEMY
CHAPEL
● CONSTRUCTION YEAR :
2008
● ARCHITECT :VENTURI,
SCOTT & ASSOCIATES
● PROJECT CATEGORY :
CHAPEL
● LOCATION : NEWTON
SQUARE, PENNYSYLVANIA,
UNITED STATES
EPISCOPAL ACADEMY
CHAPEL
Inside the 15,000 square foot chapel‟s fan – shaped plan
allows worshipers to face each other as well as the altar.
PLAN
INTERIOR
INTERIOR
● The interior is lit by means of two level of clerestory windows.
● Over-lapping layers of walls, which allow indirect light to create aura
ALLEN MEMORIAL ART
MUSEUM
PROJECT NAME : ALLEN
MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM
CONSTRUCTION YEAR :
1917
ARCHITECT : CASS
GILBERT AND VENTURI
PROJECT CATEGORY :
MUSEUM
LOCATION : OBERLIN, OHIO

ALLEN MEMORIAL ART
MUSEUM
●Primarily a teaching museum,
and a vital cultural resource for the
students, faculty, and staff of
Oberlin College.
●It was designed by Cass Gilbert

,but additions were made by
Venturi and Associates.
●Constructed to meet the

growing needs of both the
museum and Art department.
●Venturi had to address the necessary and daily functions of the museum
while maintaining a visual flow with the old building
● Done by the use of coloured pink granite and sandstone serves as a
visual cue to associate the two structures synthetically.
● Venturi wanted to unify the physical actualities of site and situation to
the design of the building, creating structures which reflect their function in
a playful and harmonious way.
The addition served
four primary purposes:
● to add a large gallery
to the existing
museum,
● to increase facilities
for the Art department,
● to rehouse the art
library,
● and to renovate the
existing museum with a
print study room and
new storage facilities.
-MUSEUM
-EXHIBITION GALLERY
-LIBRARY AND FACILITIES FOR ART
PLAN
ARCHITECTURAL STYLE
●The Art Museum is a mixture of Beaux-Art ideals and Italian Renaissance
design.
●The building has the appearance of an Italian villa:
-strict symmetry,
- classical arches, and
- support by columns.
● The checkerboard pattern of the front piece of Venturi‟s addition is
immediately noticeable .
● Continuity in color and geometric ornamentation that link the two
buildings.
● The red granite and sandstone checkers of Venturi take up the theme
from Gilbert, visually filling in the red geometric rectangular outlines on the
tan sandstone of the façade.
INTERIOR
THANK YOU !
SUBMITTED BY :
ANKUSH ANAND

Robert Venturi

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rOBErT

● Born – June 25,1925

● Venturi's architecture has never

● His architecture seems difficult to

● It isn't particularly simple or easy,

●PROJECT NAME : VANNA

● LOCATION : 8330 MILLMAN

LOCATION : OBERLIN, OHIO

●It was designed by Cass Gilbert

●Constructed to meet the

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