Symposium at Yale School of Architecture Looks at Lesson and Legacy of Las Vegas

An international array of critics, architects and historians will convene at Yale School of Architecture January 21–23 to consider the long-term impact on design, urbanism and architectural discourse of Las Vegas—the city that Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown put on the map of “High Architecture.”

A highlight of the symposium will be a keynote address on Friday, 6:30 p.m., by Venturi and Scott Brown, whose historic 1968 field trip to Las Vegas with Yale architectural students changed the way architects, designers and city planners view the icon of commercialism.

Symposium organizer Stanislaus von Moos will give the opening address, titled “The City as Spectacle: A View from the Gondola,” on Thursday, 6:30 p.m. An author, art historian and architectural theorist, von Moos is the spring term’s Vincent Scully Professor of Architectural History at the School of Architecture.

Other highlights will include:

January 22
Beginning at 2 p.m., a panel titled “Procession, Shopping and the Invisible Order” will explore Las Vegas as the prototype “laboratory” of urban dynamics, where existing forces can be understood in terms of design.

This will be followed by another panel, “Pop and the Natural Flow of Existence.” Participants will discuss how “Learning from Las Vegas,” the book by Venturi and Scott Brown about their field trip, brought the pop culture—especially the movies— that created the “myth” of Las Vegas into the world of architecture and urban theory.

The keynote address, “What Did You Learn,” which is the Paul Rudolph Lecture, will be given by Venturi and Scott Brown at 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, January 23
The Saturday morning session will begin at 9:30 a.m. with a panel, “Modern? Post-Modern? Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates at Work,” exploring the unique approach of VSB&A toward mass culture.

In the first afternoon panel, beginning at 2 p.m., artists Peter Fischli and Dan Graham and architect Elizabeth Diller will examine how Las Vegas hallmarks of pop-aesthetic, historic allusion and bare functionalism are reflected in the work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates and how Las Vegas continues to exert a challenge in art and architecture today.

The final event in the symposium will be a discussion among architects Stan Allen,
Peter Eisenman and Rafael Moneo, moderated by Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern.

Von Moos will deliver closing remarks following the discussion.

All events take place in Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York Street. The symposium is open to the public, but prior registration is required. To learn more about “Architecture After Las Vegas,” and to submit your registration, please go to: http://www.architecture.yale.edu/drupal/events/symposia