Flows from early Modernism into the Interior Streets of Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown

In 1972 the famous diagram of the ‘Decorated Shed’ was introduced into the architectural discourse; it implied a definition of ‘architecture as shelter with decoration on it’ [1]. The diagram was part of urban research into the commercial environment of Las Vegas that was interpreted by the researchers – Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour – as ‘a new type of urban form’ that they meant ‘to understand’ in order ‘to begin to evolve techniques for its handling’. Yet the critique on this and other research and designs by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown focused essentially on questions of form and more specifically of the image of architecture.