Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, Scheme IV A (Scale model, 1/4" = 1')

Robert Venturi

1959-64

A quarter‑inch‑to‑one‑foot balsa‑wood and cardboard model of Robert Venturi’s Vanna Venturi House, made to explore a domestic form that mixes everyday, historical references and deliberate asymmetry to challenge modernist simplicity.

You immediately notice a toy‑like house silhouette with a steep gabled roof, twin chimneys, an oversized arched opening and a low curved wall, where proportions are playfully skewed so the building reads like a familiar but slightly off balance icon.

The model crystallizes Venturi’s critique of modernist purity and his advocacy for “complexity and contradiction,” helping to launch Postmodern architecture’s return to symbolism, vernacular forms, and layered meanings in everyday buildings.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural model Architecture Model Postmodernism Built environment Prototype

Exhibitions

Modern Rooms of the Last Fifty Years

1946

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Architectural Models from the Collection

1974

Philip L. Goodwin Galleries of Architecture and Design

1964