Symposium: "Architecture After Las Vegas"

Symposia take place in Paul Rudolph Hall, Hastings Hall unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, 21 January 2010
6:30PM

Stanislaus von Moos, Yale University
"The City as Spectacle: A View from the Gondola"

Friday, 22 January 2010
2:00PM

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, Signs 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

Friday, 22 January 2010
6:30PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS, Paul Rudolph Lecture

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Architects
“What Did You Learn”

Reception, Architecture Gallery, second floor, Paul Rudolph Hall

Saturday, 23 January 2010
9:30AM

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 World 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

Saturday, 23 January 2010
2:00PM

ARTISTS’ STATEMENTS
The mix of Pop aesthetic, historic reference and no-nonsense functionalism proposed by the built work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Asociates 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 M oneo

Moderator,
Robert A.M. Stern, Yale University

CLOSING REMARKS
Stanislaus von Moos, Yale University

Reception, Architecture Gallery, second floor, Paul Rudolph Hall