Having Words

by Denise Scott Brown

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

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction

159 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Denise Scott Brown ( Lakofski) is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Denise Scott Brown and her husband and partner, Robert Venturi, are regarded among the most influential architects of the twentieth century, both through their architecture and planning, and theoretical writing and teaching.
In 1972, with Venturi and Steven Izenour, Scott Brown wrote Learning From Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. The book published studies of the Las Vegas Strip, undertaken with students in a research studio Scott Brown taught with Venturi in 1970 at Yale's School of Architecture and Planning. The book joined Venturi's previous Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (Museum of Modern Art, 1966) as a rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes, and a pointed acceptance of American sprawl and vernacular architecture. The book coined the terms "Duck" and "Decorated Shed" as applied to opposing architectural styles. Scott Brown has remained a prolific writer on architecture and urban planning.

Reviews

[Rory Hyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book in a good little series from the AA. Denise Scott-Brown is really one of my heroes. Her application of historical, ethnographic and sociological thinking to urban design and architecture is still incredibly radical, but has been completely overwhelmed by Venturi’s obsession with signs and language. Somebody needs to do a proper book on that, a big one.

[Ekaterina Ulitina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Коллекция эссе Дениз Скотт Браун из очень хорошей серии, которую делали The AA School. Я случайно украла ее из библиотеки моего парижского университета года три назад. Не все легко читается — а когда вам в этой профессии в последний раз было легко? Однако замечательны эссе о сексизме и стархитекторах (она написала его в семидесятых, но не опубликовала, потому что боялась, что это навредит ее карьере; эссе это больно читать), о дизайне женских туалетов, о важности написания текстов в архитектуре. Какая замечательная женщина, ученая, зодчая!

[Maggie Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic, funny, smart, revealing of what it’s like to be a woman making in the world

[MatosMR · Rating 5 out of 5]

En esta colección de ensayos, la autora dibuja un mapa de su pensamiento —que de alguna manera refleja la posmodernidad en arquitectura— desde 1967 con «Planeando el tocador» hasta 2009 con «Palabras sobre arquitectura». Como la misma Scott Brown lo expresa en el prólogo, ella ha sido jinete de circo toda su vida, cabalgando entre la arquitectura y el urbanismo, dos bestias que tiran en direcciones opuestas.

En estos ensayos se tocan temas sociales, de planificación urbana y arquitectónicos escritos de una manera inteligente y amena. La voz de Scott Brown es un susurro que se vuelve grito: el ensayo «Sexismo y el star system en arquitectura» (1989) es un llamado de atención sobre el papel de la mujer y lo poco reconocidas que son sus contribuciones en la arquitectura. En «Hacia una socioplástica activa» (2007) la autora relata el impacto que tuvo en su formación como arquitecta las lecciones sobre sociología, disciplina que ha adoptado en su práctica profesional desde entonces.

«Having words» es un texto obligado para las personas en formación y formadas en disciplinas espaciales como la arquitectura, el urbanismo, la geografía y la planeación urbana.