The Vanna Venturi House (1961)
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Architect: Robert Venturi, a Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate.
When architect Robert Venturi built this home for his mother, he shocked the world. Postmodern in style, the Vanna Venturi house flew in the face of Modernism and changed the way we think about architecture.
The design of Vanna Venturi House appears deceptively simple. A light wood frame is divided by a rising chimney. The house has a sense of symmetry, yet the symmetry is often distorted. For example, the façade is balanced with five window squares on each side. The way the windows are arranged, however, is not symmetrical. Consequently, the viewer is momentarily startled and disoriented. Inside the house, the staircase and chimney compete for the main center space. Both unexpectedly divide to fit around each other.
Combining surprise with tradition, the Vanna Venturi House includes numerous references to historic architecture. There are suggestions of Michaelangelo’s Porta Pia in Rome, the Nymphaeum at Palladio, and Alessandro Vittoria’s Villa Barbaro at Maser.
The radical house Venturi built for his mother is frequently discussed in architecture and art history classes and has inspired the work of many other architects.
