First week workshop

In the beginning, we surrounded UTS and painted the building. This made me understand the structure and composition of the city. Framing is a tool to explore composition. In the framework of architecture and landscape, my paintings contain clear front, middle, and background, which are distinguished by different tones, for example the white of the paper, a Medium and a heavy tonal value.

Before the start of the 'Observing Las Vegas' project, the team of Venturi spent three weeks in the library, four days in Los Angeles and ten days in Las Vegas. Then they returned to Yale and spent ten weeks for analysing and presenting their discovers. According to Venturi(1972), he states that They used analytical tools which help them to understand new spaces and forms and graphical tools which can represent spaces and forms to frame the Las Vegas. They mainly complete the observation of buildings and streets by taking photos and then use the drawings to create the symbols of the city(see Figure 1). In the beginning, Venturi believed that there were defects in the Las Vegas Strip, such as sporadic buildings and parking lots. However, Las Vegas helped Venturi learn to understand its existing landscape and then accept it. Combined with the Learning from Las Vegas, Venturi stated that, Many architects find the vernacular of the middle class of America to be so repugnant, distasteful, and unappealing that they have a difficult time in examining it open-mindedly to discover its true functionality” (1977, p. 153). This is related to the culture and economy behind them, and they rarely take into account the details of the designer’s intentions and creations. Denise Scott Brown's interest in Las Vegas, the city of signs and slogans, is so confrontational against any economic or moral constraint that she chooses to explore them(Scott Brown, as cited in Harbison 2018).Denise Scott Brown's interest in Las Vegas, the city of signs and slogans, is so confrontational against any economic or moral constraint that she chooses to explore them (Harbison 2018). The symbol dominates the space, but only Architecture is not enough. Symbols are the prime, not the form, that determines the spatial relationship. 'The sign is more important than the architecture' (Learning from Las Vegas 1977). These are reflected in the owner's budget. For example, Figure 2 is a duck store, then its shape is directly designed as a duck, called 'The Long Island Duckling'. In the past, the internal and external contradictions of buildings were ubiquitous. The false fronts of western stores are an example. They are larger and larger than the front interiors to convey the importance of the store. The importance of symbols is also reflected in people relying on it. For example,‘The trip’ is an artwork of Allan D’ Arcangelo(Figure 3), which embodies sharp contradictions, must turn right if you want to turn left. The driver thirty years ago can maintain a sense of direction in space, but he does not have time to think about the subtleties of contradiction in a dangerous, tortuous maze. When driving at high speeds in a vast space, they can only rely on huge Road sign. They cleverly use the lens media, in "On Formal Analysis as Design Research" (1979), she recalls the use of cameras in different ways: binding three cameras to the front of the car and driving the length of the strip; Each lens is stitched together to make a panorama; shooting a time-lapse movie, etc(see Figure 4 & 5).Inspired by her, I photographed different urban buildings and buildings from different angles. The first week of the drawing task was completed by taking photos.

By researching Learning from Las Vegas, I learned that I should be prepared before starting the framework city, such as entering the library and then arriving at the city. After that, you should use the camera tool to take pictures and observe the city daily, organize the photos and show them through painting. In this book, the architect's style is very forward-looking and speculative. Most of the symbols are by imagination, but this is also a manifestation of documentation, because in some parts it reflects reality.

As can be seen from the observation of Figure 6, most of the elements in Venturi's map are squares and lines. And through the distribution of colours, it is easy to divide the positive space and the negative space. Areas filled with colour are more likely to attract personal attention. However, the blank area and the area can be better compared. Through the analysis of the Venturi drawings (see Figure 7 & Figure 8), we can see that the drawings incorporate a number of patterns such as text, logos, lines and a huge billboard sign "Welcome to Las Vegas". In this way they portray the general layout of the city and the distribution of the buildings. The photo collages shown in Figures 9 and 10 are a very dramatic urban expression that inspired me to draw my digital painting in this way. But there are still some problems that need to be developed.

Figure 9 & 10: photo collages​​​​​​​

Harbison, I. 2018, ‘Learning from Denise Scott Brown’, Frieze, London, viewed 25 August 2019, <https://frieze.com/article/learning-denise-scott-brown?language=de>.

Kahl, D. 2008, ‘Robert Venturi and His Contributions to Postmodern Architecture’, Oshkosh Scholar, Vol. 3, pp.55-63 

Venturi, R. 1972, ‘Learning from Las Vegas’，MIT Press, Cambridge, pp.1-68.​​​

Venturi, R. 1977, ‘Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form’， MIT Press, Cambridge.​​