Yale School of Architecture
Paul Rudolph Hall
Hastings Hall (basement floor)
180 York Street
New Haven, CT

ARCHITECTURE AFTER LAS VEGAS
A Symposium

Thursday-Saturday, January 21-23, 2010
This symposium, coinciding with an exhibition in the School’s
Architecture Gallery “What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and
the Work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates,” explores the impact
that Las Vegas; the work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates; and
Learning from Las Vegas have had upon architecture and urbanism.

Thursday, January 21
Evening Session, 6:30 PM
Stanislaus von Moos, Yale University
“The City as Spectacle: A View from the Gondola”

Friday, January 22
Afternoon Session, 2:00 PM

PROCESSION, SHOPPING, AND THE INVISIBLE ORDER
In a situation where urbanism is no longer about visions of order but
about understanding and irrigating existing forces, i.e. the capacity
of interpreting them in terms of design, Las Vegas continues to be a
prime laboratory of urban dynamics.

Mary McLeod, Columbia University
“Ordinary and Extraordinary: Sheds, Sign, and Spectacle”

Martino Stierli, University of Basel
“Las Vegas and the Mobilized Gaze”

David Schwarz, Architect
“Building Las Vegas Today”

Response
Emmanuel Petit, Yale University

POP AND “THE NATURAL FLOW OF EXISTENCE”
The “myth” of Las Vegas has its origins in the movies and in a
sensibility in the arts labeled as “Pop.” Learning from Las Vegas
played a major role in bringing this sensibility to architecture and
to urban theory. The speakers in this session explore this shift of
paradigms.

Ralph Stern, University of Washington
"Las Vegas and Cinema"

Katherine Smith, Agnes Scott College
“Contemporary Art and the American Landscape”

Libby Lumpkin, Art Historian and Curator
“Las Vegas High Architecture and the Market for Popular Design”

Response
Elihu Rubin, Yale University

Evening Session, 6:30 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Paul Rudolph Lecture
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Architects
“What Did You Learn?”

RECEPTION
Architecture Gallery, second floor

Saturday, January 23
Morning Session, 9:30 AM

MODERN? POSTMODERN?
VENTURI, SCOTT BROWN & ASSOCIATES AT WORK
Architectural modernism has practiced an ambivalent attitude to mass
culture. While on the one hand actively engaging in mass production
and spectacle, it defined its pursuits as an alternative to the
“common sense” of the marketplace. The work of Venturi, Scott Brown &
Associates offers a different approach.

Aron Vinegar, Ohio State University
"Scenes of Instruction: On Learning from Las Vegas"

Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University
“Beyond Las Vegas: Levittown”

Karin Theunissen, Delft University of Technology
"Directional Spaces and Billboarding"

Response
Alan Plattus, Yale University

SHEDS AND DUCKS ACROSS SPACE AND TIME
Perhaps more than indicating a strategic shift in design, Learning
from Las Vegas reflects a change in interest in the history and theory
of art and architecture. The interaction of word and image as an
architectural trope, the paradigm of “architecture parlante” and the
vernacular have become key issues in architectural and art discourse
since.

Neil Levine, Harvard University
“The Word and the Building (Labrouste)”

Maristella Casciato, University of Bologna
“Italy: ‘Common Man’ and History”

Valéry Didelon, Architect
“European Architects and the Spell of the ‘Decorated Shed’”

Response
Kurt W. Forster, Yale University

Afternoon Session, 2:00 PM

ARTISTS’ STATEMENTS
The mix of Pop aesthetic, historic reference and no-nonsense
functionalism proposed by the built work of Venturi, Scott Brown &
Associates has been a potent adaptation of the lessons from the
strip as it existed around 1970. What are the strip’s challenges in
art and architecture today?

Elizabeth Diller
Peter Fischli
Dan Graham

Moderator
Stanislaus von Moos, Yale University

ARCHITECTS’ PANEL DISCUSSION
Stan Allen
Peter Eisenman
Rafael Moneo

Moderator
Robert A.M. Stern, Yale University

CLOSING REMARKS
Stanislaus von Moos, Yale University

RECEPTION
Architecture Gallery, second floor

This symposium is free, but reservations are required prior to January
15, 2010. You may register online at www.architecture.yale.edu/
symposia or by phone at 203.432.8621.

The Yale School of Architecture is a Registered Provider with The
American Institute of Architects Continuing Education System. Credit
earned by attending this symposium will be reported to CES Records for
AIA members. Certificates of Completion for non-AIA members are
available upon request.

This symposium is supported in part by the Paul Rudolph Lectureship
Fund and by the generosity of the Edward and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Fund.