Learning from Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, or Representing 'The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form'

In 1972 Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, with Steven Izenour, published Learning from Las Vegas, a seminal study of architectural symbolism, specifically in the context of the contemporary suburban landscape.  This publication embraces numerous representational strategies and methodological approaches, drawing widely from social discourse and visual culture, and the architects acknowledge significant influences, including those from contemporary art. 
The influence of Pop art on Venturi and Scott Brown’s architecture has been a primary focus of my research, but my current project explores the reverse, looking at the ways that Venturi and Scott Brown’s architecture has paralleled and informed the works of select contemporary artists, including Claes Oldenburg and Dan Graham.

Katherine Smith is a graduate of the University of Georgia (A.B., art history, 1994) and an Assistant Professor of Art History at Agnes Scott College, where her approach to teaching draws directly on the interdisciplinary nature of her research, which focuses on thinking across media.  Her scholarship addresses intersections in American art and architecture from the 1960s to the present.  Her recent publications include essays in Relearning from Las Vegas (The University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and in Archives of American Art Journal (summer 2009).