From the bustle of Johannesburg to the neon of Las Vegas, Denise Scott Brown’s advocacy for “messy vitality” has transformed the way we look at the urban landscape. Unconventional, eloquent, and with a profound sociopolitical message, Scott Brown is one of our era’s most influential thinkers on architecture and urbanism.
The anthology Denise Scott Brown. In Other Eyes—marking the fiftieth anniversary of the seminal treatise Learning from Las Vegas—paints a portrait of Scott Brown as seen through the eyes of leading architectural historians and practitioners. It features new scholarship on her education on three continents, her multidisciplinary teaching, and her use of urban patterns and forces as tools for architectural design—a practice documented in a new comment by Scott Brown, noting that sometimes “1+1>2.”
The book includes contributions by Mary McLeod, Joan Ockman, Sylvia Lavin, Stanislaus von Moos, Jacques Herzog, Robin Middleton, and Denise Scott Brown, among others.
During this program, architect and architectural historian Frida Grahn, editor of Denise Scott Brown. In Other Eyes (Birkhäuser), provided an overview of the career of Denise Scott Brown and her influence in the profession. Philadelphia-based writer Elizabeth Greenspan served as a respondent to the talk. We were also joined by Denise Scott Brown who provided a series of observations.
You can purchase the book from its publisher or your local bookstore:
→ Denise Scott Brown. In Other Eyes (Birkhäuser, 2022).
Las Vegas style and Denise style, 1966. Photo by Robert Venturi. © Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.
© Courtesy of VSBA.
Denise Scott Brown. © Ingrid von Kruse. Courtesy of VSBA.
Venice canal, 1956. Photograph by Denise Scott Brown. Courtesy of Denise Scott Brown.
South Street, 1960s. Photograph by Denise Scott Brown. Courtesy of Denise Scott Brown.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Denise Scott Brown, “Invention and Tradition,” MAS Context, 2012
mascontext.com/issues/ownership/invention-and-tradition
Denise Scott Brown, “Room at the Top? Sexism and the Star System in Architecture,” MAS Context, 2015
mascontext.com/issues/debate/room-at-the-top-sexism-and-the-star-system-in-architecture
Denise Scott Brown, “Studio: Architecture’s Offering to Academe,” MAS Context, 2021
mascontext.com/observations/studio-architectures-offering-to-academe
Denise Scott Brown, “1 + 1 > 2: Letter to Biljana, Notes to Frida,” MAS Context, 2023
mascontext.com/observations/1-1-2-letter-to-biljana-notes-to-frida
Elizabeth Greenspan, “Star System,” Culture
culture.org/elizabeth-greenspan-star-system
