Allen Art Museum Addition Commentary

Allen Art Museum Addition Commentary

"Pink granite and red sandstone cladding were used to create a decorative facade that plays composite elements against the whole in a reinterpretation of the main building's character. Venturi says: 'we tried to harmonize with his masterpiece in ways not too obvious.'

"The long 'International Style' strip windows of the school and workshop wing make for an uninteresting facade, as the architects themselves acknowledge, since it was intended to simulate loft buildings that house studios for artists and to please the occupants by not infringing on their creativity by an excess of architectural zeal."

—Stanislaus von Moos. Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown: Buildings and Projects. p180.

The Creator's Words

"But to gain insight from the commonplace is nothing new: Fine art often follows folk art. Romantic architects of the eighteenth century discovered an existing and conventional industrial vocabulary without much adaptation. Le Corbusier loved grain elevators and steam- ships; the Bauhaus looked like a factory; Mies refined the details of American steel factories for concrete buildings. Modern architects work through analogy, symbol, and image—although they have gone to lengths to disclaim almost all determinants of their forms except the structural necessity and the program—and they derive insights, analogies, and stimulation from unexpected images."

—Robert Venturi. from Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas. pxvii.

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