Spotlight: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Through their pioneering theory and provocative built work, husband and wife duo Robert Venturi (born June 25, 1925) and Denise Scott Brown (born October 3, 1931) were at the forefront of the postmodern movement, leading the charge in one of the most significant shifts in architecture of the 20th century by publishing seminal books such as Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (authored by Robert Venturi alone) and Learning from Las Vegas (co-authored by Venturi, Scott Brown and Steven Izenour).

Born in Philadelphia and Northern Rhodesia (modern day Zambia) respectively, Venturi and Scott Brown met while they were both teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. They married in 1967, and in 1969 Scott Brown joined Venturi's firm—then named Venturi and Raunch—as partner in charge of planning. The firm rebranded in 1980 to include Scott Brown's name, and then again in 1989 when partner John Rauch resigned, then forming Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.