Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

1987 / 58 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood
Featuring: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, Martin Pawley, Alvin Boyarsky, Philip Finkelpearl, Colin Amery, Gavin Stamp, Jules Lubbock, Sir John Sainsbury, Vincent Scully, Prince Charles of Wales

Filmed during the design and realization of the Sainsbury extension to the National Gallery in London, Venturi speaks of the revelatory experiences with classical architecture that led to his revolutionary re-appraisal of modern architecture and his landmark text of 1966, Complexity and Contradiction. Wife/partner architect Denise Scott Brown describes their formulation of post-Modern principles in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Architectural historians both attack and defend the National Gallery extension and Venturi and Scott Brown’s work. The video surveys the couple’s major works. Filmed with architects in Las Vegas, Rome, Venice, Philadelphia, and at his mother’s house in Pennsylvania.