zero six nine
2017.07.29
Learning from Learning from Las Vegas (again)
...are you at all familiar with the first edition? What's missing from the second edition is Part III, Essays in the Ugly and Ordinary: Some Decorated Sheds which is a exposition of Venturi & Rauch projects from 1966-1971--in some relevant ways these projects complement the texts. The first edition is also much more a book where you can 'read' the pictures without reading much of the text (which is how I mostly 'read' the book as a student back in the last half of the 1970s).
Regarding hyperbole and the 1968-72 Zeitgeist here in the US. I was in 8th grade 1969-70 at St. Ambrose School at C St. and Roosevelt Boulevard, Philadelphia. Our teacher was Sister Charles Mary, a squat, very over-weight nun (her nickname among the students was Fat Chuck). Our classroom had large wall-to-wall windows facing Roosevelt Boulevard, a 12 lane green urban thoroughfare, and the R bus and the J bus had a stop right at our corner. Sister Chuck divided our class (of about 60) into girls on one side and boys on the other (window) side. In the spring of 1970, one rather suddenly saw Tan Hawaiian with Tanya advertisements on the sides of busses all over Philadelphia (the same as the billboard on the cover of Learning from Las Vegas). This ubiquitous bikini clad female body prompted Sister Chuck to lecture us one day on morality (or whatever), saying how such a public advertisement was shameful (or something like that). I sat in the row right next to the windows, and just after Sister Chuck gave her lecture, I looked out the window waiting for a bus to drive by, and it didn't take long before I simply said, "There it is." Well, the whole boy's half of the classroom went absolutely nuts, literally jumping out of their seats yelling and whistling, with those nearest the windows lunging their arms out the windows yelling "I want you! I want you!" Of course, now Fat Chuck also went berserk screaming, "Sit down! Sit down! Sit down!" and it only quieted down when Fat Chuck looked like she was actually about to have a heart attack.
When I first saw Learning from Las Vegas circa 1975-76, I fell in love with the book as soon as I saw the cover. Can you really blame me?
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