The Supercrit series revisits some of the most influential architectural projects of the recent past and examines their impact on the way we think and design today. Based on live studio debates between protagonists and critics, the books describe, explore and criticise these major projects. This second book in the unprecedented series examines Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's infamous book which overturned the barriers separating high architecture from the commercial architecture of the Strip. In Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown: Learning from Las Vegas you can hear the couple's project description, see the drawings and join in the crit. This innovative and compelling book is an invaluable resource for any architecture student.

Foreword by Arthur Drexler. Introduction by Vincent Scully.

The observer-designer-theorists who analyzed the Las Vegas strip as an archetype in "Learning from Las Vegas" now turn their iconoclastic vision onto their own remarkable partnership and the rule-breaking architecture it has spawned for this fascinating retrospective of their life work.

Also presented are spectacular renovations for the Frank Furness library building at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard's Memorial Hall and designs for houses, exhibitions, fabrics, furniture, and decorative items. The catalog, written by the architects, focuses on important aspects of their practice in the late 1980s and the 1990s, notably the juxtaposition of a "hype" sensibility in decoration - manifested in large-scale LED signs and colorful supergraphics - and a generic architecture. The introductory essay, by Stanislaus von Moos, discusses five major themes in Venturi and Scott Brown's architecture: its dialogue with their hometown, Philadelphia, as both a national shrine and a center of architectural innovation; the importance of the American campus as a model for planning and design; organicism as a source of their design theory; the role of realism and abstraction in the firm's architecture; and the Venturis' recent interest in Japan and its traditions.

Verzamelde interviews met Amerikaanse architecten.