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

Robert Venturi

1959-64

A small cardboard-and-paper architectural model Robert Venturi used to study the Vanna Venturi House’s domestic form, testing scale, proportion, and the deliberate tension between symmetry and asymmetry.

It looks almost like a toy—flat brown planes, two blocky chimneys and a bold semicircular opening, with sliced-away walls and an exposed stair that make the building’s interior and contradictory facades immediately readable.

As an intimate study for a landmark project, the model embodies Venturi’s rejection of modernist purity and his turn toward historical reference, ambiguity, and the ‘complexity and contradiction’ that helped seed postmodern architecture.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural model Architecture Model Design Built environment Postmodernism

Exhibitions

Architectural Models from the Collection

1974

Modern Rooms of the Last Fifty Years

1946

Modern Architecture for the Modern School

1942

Philip L. Goodwin Galleries of Architecture and Design

1964