The MIT Press, New York, 2000, 1977 (revised); originally published 1972, English
Nonfiction, Architecture
6 x 9 inches, paperback, 210 pages
ISBN: 9780262720069
Suggested Retail Price: $25.95

From the Publisher (revised edition, 1977): The book created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of “common” people and less immodest in their erections of “heroic,” self-aggrandizing monuments. This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, “Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed,” a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. Includes an added preface by Scott Brown.

On 9 book lists
Michael Bierut

The designer as anti-hero. (See also The Fountainhead.)

Nathalie de Vries

The mother of all research projects on architecture and urbanism connected to everyday life.

Ellen Lupton

The first edition of this world-changing manifesto was designed by Muriel Cooper. Alas, the original design finds little expression in the current editions, but the text remains a profound celebration of surface. This is the New Testament of design theory.

R. Craig Miller

With his two colleagues, Venturi reasserted the importance of the vernacular and showed that the ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary, again pushing the boundaries of modern design.

Zoë Ryan

A mainstay of discussions concerning the built landscape.

Rudy VanderLans

The idea of blending design into the environment by incorporating common, everyday forms, as opposed to applying a rigid, dogmatic language, was liberating for me.

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