Museum im Bellpark Kriens Luzernerstrasse 21 CH-6011 Kriens Suisse
In 1968, American architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour together with students from Yale University made Las Vegas the object of their research. The group spent three weeks in libraries, four days in Los Angeles and ten days in Las Vegas. In 1972, their findings were presented and interpreted in terms of a general architectural theory in the seminal publication Learning from Las Vegas. This study dealt above all with the symbolic dimension of architecture and the question of communication in the contemporary city. With their work, they decisively influenced the way the modern, commercial city was seen and also the direction of urbanistic research projects in both methodology and questions of representation.
Photography and film were important instruments for urban analysis in this «research studio.» They were equally means of argumentation and representation. The original material has since been stored in the archives of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates in Philadelphia. The firm has now opened its archives. The exhibition «Las Vegas Studio» presents the images and films that were taken during the legendary 1968 Las Vegas research, making a selection available to the public for the first time. The visual material provides a spectacular demonstration of how Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour conceptualized the city in the medium of the image.