United States
Architects
Postmodern architecture

Denise Scott Brown (1931) and Robert Venturi (1925–2018) were American architects and theorists whose work helped found postmodern architecture and deeply influenced how designers read urban landscapes. Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) challenged modernism’s obsession with purity, celebrating ambiguity, mixed references and the ‘both‑and’ quality of historical cities. Scott Brown, trained in architecture and planning in South Africa, London and the U.S., brought expertise in urban design, social sciences and fieldwork methods, focusing on the emerging automobile city and popular culture. Together at Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, they developed research projects such as Learning from Las Vegas and Learning from Levittown, using photography, mapping and behavioural observation to analyse strips, suburbs and campus.

A View from the Campidoglio: Selected Essays (1984)

Learning from Las Vegas (1972)

Architecture as Signs and Systems: for a Mannerist Time (2004)