If you’ve ever admired the “Chippendale” cornice of New York City’s Sony Building, the smooth pink curves of the “Lipstick” Building, the bold letters defining New Haven’s 1974 Goffe Street Fire Station, you appreciate Post Modern architecture, the playful, freely expressive reaction against the rigid rules of modernism outlined by Pritzker Prize winner Robert Venturi in his influential book “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.” Venturi and his wife Denise Scott Brown set a standard of design using classical motifs in a variety of materials to create structures that nodded to the classics but celebrated popular culture.
The couple’s partnership and their work are chronicled in a new documentary “Stardust: The Story of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.” Filmed by their son Jim, the Prime Video piece can be streamed online, an opportunity to learn more about the influential pair and their works sampled in the slide show below.
