“Learning from Las Vegas” is one of the most important books in the history and criticism of architecture and urbanism. Its three authors—Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour—brought a curious approach to a city whose growth was driven by gambling and a dangerous association with the Mafia. Las Vegas, a city filled with signs, parking lots, and casinos, served as the reference point for the three authors during a research project at Yale University. The objective was to study the development of a new urban typology, the strip, in search of a new perspective on the city and architecture.
Published in 1972, the book presents an urban discussion that is a product of its time. In its first part, urban analyses are conducted under the influence of authors such as Aldo Rossi, Kevin Lynch, and Gordon Cullen, as several of the mapping tools used were widely presented by them in publications of the period, such as “The Architecture of the City,” “The Image of the City,” and “Townscape.” Bruno Sarmento, the architect and urban planner invited as a guest on this episode, discusses not only the maps created by the authors but also the direct comparison they draw with Nolli's 18th-century map of Rome, commonly known as “figure-ground maps.” Thus, a first attempt to compare distinct urban morphologies becomes clear, alongside a search for experimentation aimed at criticizing the modernist concept of a total city. What better place to find arguments for this battle than in its antithesis, the strip?
