Architecture as Signs and Systems

For a Mannerist Time

Robert Venturi

Denise Scott Brown

  • Finalist 2005 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Architecture Category

Introduction
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

I. Architecture as Sign rather than Space
New Mannerism rather than Old Expressionism
Robert Venturi

1. An Evolution of Ideas

2. Communication and Convention for an Iconographic Architecture

3. Architecture as Sign in the Work of VSBA

4. A New Mannerism, for Architecture as Sign

II. Architecture as Patterns and Systems
Learning from Planning
Denise Scott Brown

5. Some Ideas and Their History

6. Activities as Patterns

7. The Redefinition of Functionalism

8. Context in Context

9. Essays in Context

10. Mannerism, because You Can't Follow All the Rules of All the Systems All the Time

Conclusion: Signs and Sytems in a Mannerist Architecture for Today
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Notes

Bibliography

Illustration Credits

Index

  • Cover: Architecture as Signs and Systems
  • A photo of the author

Photo of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown by Matt Wargo

Robert Venturi is principal in charge of design in the architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Pritzker Prize and the Centennial Medal of the American Academy in Rome and, with Denise Scott Brown, the National Medal of Art and the Vincent J. Scully Prize of the National Building Museum. He has taught at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.

Denise Scott Brown is principal in charge of urban and campus planning and design in the architectural firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the ACSA-AIA Topaz Medallion for Architecture Education and the Chicago Architecture Award. She has taught at Harvard, Yale, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania.