Denise Scott Brown

Upon its publication by the MIT Press in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas was immediately influential and controversial. The authors made an argument that was revolutionary for its time -- that the billboards and casinos of Las Vegas were worthy of architectural attention -- and offered a challenge for contemporary architects obsessed with the heroic and monumental. Learning from Las Vegas begins with the Las Vegas Strip and proceeds to "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. As Scott Brown says in her introduction, the book "upended sacred cows ... would not bad-mouth bad taste, and redefined architectural research."

The essays in this collection extend from Scott Brown 1969 text, "On Pop Art, Permissiveness and Planning" (written three years before the publication of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour's seminal book Learning From Las Vegas) to "Towards an Active Socioplastics" from 2007, which offers an overview of Scott Brown's education and the gestation of her key architectural and urban ideas. In between, eight other essays from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, offer insights not only into Scott Brown's evolving architectural imagination but touch upon the changing collective ideas and aspirations of design education and practice. —Description from William Stout Architectural Books

"The views of Venturi and Scott Brown have influenced architects worldwide for nearly half a century. Pluralism and multiculturalism; symbolism and iconography; popular culture and the everyday landscape; generic building and electronic communication are among the many ideas they have championed. Here, they present both a retrospective of their life work and a definitive statement of its theoretical underpinnings." "Architecture as Signs and Systems is a must for students of architecture and urban planning, as well as anyone intrigued by these seminal cultural figures."--BOOK JACKET.