03 Mar 2009

Las Vegas Studio at Deutsches Architekturmuseum

In 1968 the US architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour and students from Yale University made the city of Las Vegas the subject of their research. The group spent three weeks in libraries, four days in Los Angeles and ten in Las Vegas. In 1972 in the book «Learning from Las Vegas»they presented their findings and evaluated them as a general theory in which the focus was on the symbolic nature of architecture and communication in the contemporary city.

In «Learning from Las Vegas»photography and film were important instruments in urban analysis. They provided means of argumentation and portrayal at one and the same time. The original material had since been kept in the company archive of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. The studio has now opened its archive. The exhibition «Las Vegas Studio» presents images and films made during the legendary Las Vegas research work in 1968 and provides an insight into the collection of images, some of which are on display to the general public for the first time.

An exhibition of the museum im Bellpark, Kriens/Switzerland, curated by Hilar Stadler, Kriens, and Martino Stierli, Basel.

www.bellpark.ch

Exhibition catalogue:

Las Vegas Studio
Images From the Archive of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
Edited by Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli in collaboration with Peter Fischli

In cooperation with Museum im Bellpark, Kriens

Essays by Stanislaus von Moos, Hilar Stadler, Martino Stierli and with a discussion between Peter Fischli, Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist

Hardback (cloth), 196 pages
150 colour and 22 b/w illustrations
22,5 cm x 28 cm
978-3-85881-717-4 (English Edition)
EUR 29,90

http://www.scheidegger-spiess.ch