LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: The MIT Press, 1972. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. First edition, first printing with the errata slip laid in. Inscribed by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour on the front flyleaf, alongside two post-it notes inscribed by Venturi. Folio: xvi, [2], 189 p. with numerous photographs, architectural plans, etc. Original gray cloth binding, lettered in gilt, with a color photograph mounted on the front panel. In the original printed glassine dust jacket, which is a bit edgeworn with a few unobtrusive tape mends.

Learning from Las Vegas caused a stir in the architectural world upon its publication, as it was hailed by progressive critics for its bold indictment of Modernism, and by the status quo as blasphemous. A split among young American architects occurred during the 1970s, with Izenour, Venturi, Robert A.M. Stern, Charles Moore, and Allan Greenberg defending the book as "The Greys", and Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk, and Michael Graves writing against its premises as "The Whites". It became associated with post-modernism when magazines such as Progressive Architecture published articles citing its influence on the younger generation. Tom Wolfe's often-pilloried book, From Bauhaus to Our House, praises Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour for their stand against heroic Modernism.