DUCKS, DECORATED SHEDS, AND HOT DOGS
Topic: Architecture/Food/Chi
THE TWO FORMAL TYPOLOGIES FOR ARCHITECTURE DESCRIBED BY VENTURI AND SCOTT BROWN REPRESENTED AS TWO VEHICLES IN CHICAGO ADVERTISING HOT DOGS


"We shall emphasize image--image over process or form--in asserting that architecture depends in its perception and creation on past experience and emotional association and that these symbolic and represetational elements may often be contradictory to the form, structure, and program with which they combine in the same building. We shall survey this contradiction in its two main manifestions:

1. Where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic form. This kind of building-becoming-sculpture we call the duck in honor of the duck-shaped drive-in, "The Long Island Duckling," illustrated in God's Own Junkyard by Peter Blake.

2. Where systems of space and structure are directly at the service of program, and ornament is applied independently of them. This we call the decorated shed.

The duck is the special building that is a symbol; the decorated shed is the conventional shelter that applies symbols."

From Venturi, Robert and Denise Scott Brown and Stephen Izenour. Learning From Las Vegas (Revised Edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1972, 1977. p. 87.