Denise Scott Brown: Difference between revisions

Born to Jewish parents Simon and Phyllis (Hepker) Lakofski, Denise Lakofski had the vision from the time she was five years old that she would be an architect.<ref>{{CitationCite web needed|title=Denise Scott ( Lakofski) Brown - Biography |url=https://www.askart.com/artist/denise_scott_lakofski_brown/11317913/denise_scott_lakofski_brown.aspx?alert=info |access-date=March2022-05-26 2020|website=www.askart.com}}</ref> Pursuing this goal, she spent her summers working with architects, and from 1948 to 1952, after attending [[Kingsmead College]],<ref name=CarpentersHall>{{cite web|url =http://www.ushistory.org/carpentershall/company/more/dreams.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106103244/http://www.ushistory.org/carpentershall/company/more/dreams.htm|title =Dreams & Themes with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, November 19, 2005 | last =Shoemaker | first =Jay | date =November 19, 2005 | website =ushistory.org | publisher =Carpenters' Hall |archive-date=November 6, 2019 |access-date=November 6, 2019 }}</ref> studied in South Africa at the [[University of the Witwatersrand]]. She briefly entered [[liberal politics]], but was frustrated by the lack of acceptance of women in the field. Lakofski traveled to London in 1952, working for the [[Modernist architecture|modernist]] architect [[Frederick Gibberd]]. She continued her education there, winning admission to the [[Architectural Association School of Architecture]] to learn “useful skills in the building of a just South Africa,” within an intellectually rich environment which embraced women. She was joined there by Robert Scott Brown, whom she had met at Witwatersrand in 1954, and graduated with a degree in architecture in 1955.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Brownlee|first1=David B.|last2=De Long|first2=David G.|last3=Whitaker|first3=Kathryn|title=Out of the Ordinary|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300089950|url-access=registration|date=2001|publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art|location=Philadelphia, PA}}</ref>

While teaching, she completed a master's degree in architecture. At a 1960 faculty meeting, she argued against demolishing the university's library (now the [[Furness Library|Fisher Fine Arts Library]]), designed by [[Philadelphia]] architect [[Frank Furness]]. At the meeting, she met [[Robert Venturi]], a young architect and fellow professor.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/lessons-from-las-vegas/|title=Lessons from Las Vegas - 99% Invisible|work=99% Invisible|access-date=April 26, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref> The two became collaborators and taught courses together from 1962 to 1964. Scott Brown left the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. Becoming known as a scholar in [[urban planning]], she taught at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], and was then named co-chair of the Urban Design Program at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]]. During her years in the Southwest, Scott Brown became interested in the newer cities of Los Angeles and [[Las Vegas, Nevada|Las Vegas]]. She invited Venturi to visit her classes at [[UCLA]], and in 1966 asked him to visit [[Las Vegas, Nevada|Las Vegas]] with her. The two were married in [[Santa Monica, California]], on July 23, 1967. Scott Brown moved back to [[Philadelphia]] in 1967 to join Robert Venturi's firm, Venturi and Rauch, and became principal in charge of planning in 1969. Denise Scott Brown later taught at [[Yale University]], where she developed courses that encouraged architects to study problems in the built environment employing both traditional empirical methods of social science but also media studies and pop culture.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the City|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediacity00cave|url-access=limited|last=Caves|first=R. W.|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=9780415252256|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediacity00cave/page/n625 585]}}</ref> In 2003 she was a visiting lecturer with Venturi at [[Harvard University]]'s [[Graduate School of Design]].<ref>{{CitationCite web needed|datetitle=MayO Que Significa GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN em Português - Tradução em Português |url=https://tr-ex.me/tradu%C3%A7%C3%A3o/ingl%C3%AAs-portugu%C3%AAs/graduate+school+of+design |access-date=2022-05-26 |website=tr-ex.me |language=pt}}</ref>