ROBERT VENTURI•Schooling and education:

Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania.

•Worked Under:

Eero Sarinen and Louis kahn.

Venturi was the pioneer of post moderm architecture, being highly critical of modernism which was rooted in minimal use of material and lack of any ornamentation.

In his style of architecture he advocates a symbolic and sophisticated formal language with which modern man might more easily identify.

He believed that modernism degenerated into an anonymous product, epitomized by monotonous glass skyscrapers and based on an efficiency of construction fostered by capitalist speculation.

• Robert Venturi drew comparisons of analogous but not obvious relationships which were used as a design tool, and disparate influences—such as the historical architecture of Rome and the commercial architecture of Las Vegas—were embraced with equal enthusiasm and respect.

These varied sources helped them to rediscover what they called the forgotten symbolism of architecture, a concept that modern architects had rejected in favor of an abstract aesthetic

GUILD HOUSE

1961-65•The guild house was not only a utilarian artifact but it also had a reflective function. It was architecture about reality – the reality of the city, of old age, and how contemporary society deals with these issues.

•It couples the practical with the theoretical in a most uncompromising, pragmatic manner.

•The plan was from the point of view of room dimensions, circulation, lobby materials and detailing, stripped to a minimal while all basic needs of the elderly concerning comfort and safe were satisfied in complete accordance with standards of that time.

•The objective of community was enhanced by an unusually large space placed at the top floor , in contrast to relegating this kind of room to the basement.

•The most simple aesthetic means were chosen in order to have least interference with the functional requirements.

PLAN

• Inexpensive red clay brickmatches an adjacent warehouse, but

the bricknearest the sidewalk is of a different

size fromthat where the facade meets the

street. Thedark walls with double-hung windows

recalltraditional city row houses, but the

effect ofthe windows is uncommon due to

their subtle,unusually big proportions.

The pretensions of the ‘giant order’ on the front, the symmetrical, palazzolike composition with its three monumental stories (as well as its six real stories), topped by a piece of sculpture—or almost sculpture—suggest something of the heroic and original. It is true that in this case the heroic and original facade is somewhat ironical, but it is this juxtaposition of contrasting symbols—the appliqué of one order of symbols on another—that constitutes for us the decorated shed. This is what makes Guild House an architect’s decorated shed

THE VANNA VENTURI HOUSE 1961-63

A minimal suburban house which stands on a flat open site in Philadelphia.

While the building has been labeled as artless and ugly, it has also been recognized as a major work that opened a new era in architecture.

The architect describes the house in terms of conflict and paradox.

The contradictory juxtapositions of “complex and simple” , “open and close”, “big and little” represent architectural strategies of composition rather than qualities physically present in their work.

There is no coherence between the internal organization and of the house and its outside envelope.

The front and the back walls appear appliqué rather than opening from the inside. While they are plane and planar, the two sides are busy and fragmented.

•Though the overall facade with the gable roof is symmetrically conceived, symmetry is broken by unbalanced windows and an off-center chimney.

•The interior is complex, compact and almost crowded. The fire place is too big and the mantle is too high for the size of the room.

•The entrance loggia is wide, high and central; Its overscale is emphasized by the contrast with other doors and with its shallowness.

• The applied wood molding over the door increases its scale too. The dado also increases the scale of the building by being higher than what is normally expected.

The basic rectangularity of the interior partitions is contrasted by segmenting diagonals of entry and circulation, describing the segmental wood trim pediment as an ornament whose purpose is to contrast with diagonal shapes of the roof in order to magnify the scale of the entrance and to stress the planarity of the stucco wall.

In its plan an interior multiplicity is distorted to fit its rigid bounds and forced to accommodate its exterior symmetry.

PLAN

It contains things behind things in elevation: An interior multiplicity appropriate for a house protruding beyond the parapets of its two parallel and manifesting itself in irregular positions of its windows.

The result of this inclusiveness is the manifest of complexity as well as the contradiction of the final design.

Complexity and contradiction are the by-products of the overriding goal to achieve a richer, closer to artifact.

The work is paradigmatic not only in terms of the goals it defines for architecture but also for the methodological design mean it suggests.

The Episcopal Academy was founded in Philadelphia in 1795 and subsequently established campuses outside the city in Devon and Merion.  In 2001, they acquired land to relocate both campuses to a single parcel in Newtown Square -- 123 acres of woods, wetlands, and former farmland. The chapel is immediately

identifiable and symbolic of the new campus, yet also a well-used and highly-functional school facility.  Its distinctive form is composed of many layers -- of masonry walls and soaring clerestories.  The spaces between these layers allow circulation and light.  The impressive and gently monumental scale of the building is softened by striped patterns at pedestrian-level

Inside, the 15,000 square foot chapel’s fan-shaped plan allows worshipers to face each other as well as the altar, nurturing a sense of togetherness and community. 

This was a configuration endorsed by the chaplain at the beginning of the design process.

The chapel serves as an important facet of life at Episcopal Academy.  Upper and middle school students attend Chapel three days a week, lower school students attend once a week.  While the service celebrates the Episcopalian heritage, it serves and welcomes students of all faiths.