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2024

Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
OCT 28, 2010 - FEB 19, 2011

In 1968, American architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, with students from Yale University, embarked on a groundbreaking investigation of the Las Vegas Strip. Their fresh way of looking at the city: the influence of popular culture, advertising, film and the experience of the built environment from a moving automobile extended the categories of the ordinary, the ugly, and the social into architecture. Their use of photography and film as a research methodology became as revolutionary as their findings, which were published in the legendary 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas. Offering great insight into the creation of this groundbreaking publication, the exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, curated by Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli in collaboration with artist Peter Fischli, presents original research materials from the archives of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.

Hilar Stadler is an art historian. Born in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1963, where he lives and works, Stadler studied Art History and Cinema Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the Director of the Museum im Bellpark, Kriens, Switzerland, as well as a freelance curator and writer in art, architecture, and photography.

Martino Stierli is an art historian focusing on modern art and architecture. Born in 1974 in Zug, Switzerland, Stierli studied at the University of Zurich and holds a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the NCCR "Iconic Criticism" (eikones) at the University of Basel working on a project on collage in architecture.

Peter Fischli was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1952, where he lives and works. He studied at the Academie di Belle Arti of Urbino and Bologna. Since 1979, he has been collaborating with artist David Weiss. Together, they form the internationally renowned artist duo Fischli/Weiss. 

Las Vegas Studio: Images From the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown is organized by the Museum im Bellpark, Kriens, Switzerland.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is accompanied by a fully illustrated exhibition catalogue. Published by Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, the publication, edited by Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli in collaboration with Peter Fischli, includes texts by Stanislaus von Moos and Martino Stierli as well as an interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Peter Fischli and Rem Koolhaas.

The Graham Foundation will sell the exhibition catalogue along with other select titles in its library throughout the exhibition.

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Four Queens Casino, Las Vegas, 1968 © Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., Philadelphia; « Gulf» gas station, Las Vegas, 1971 © Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., Philadelphia; Parking lot on the Strip, Las Vegas, 1968 © Venturi, Scott Brown