The Smallish Vanna Venturi House

This is the Vanna Venturi House. It is considered one of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture movement. Architect Robert Venturi designed the house for his mother, Vanna. It was completed in 1964.

The Vanna Venturi House may not seem like a small house to you. It is 1,986 square feet. But compared to the 4-story houses around it, it’s a small house.

This smallish house has five rooms. The highest point is 30-feet high, but the house looks much bigger. It creates an optical illusion.

Downstairs

Downstairs is an entry, kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms and bathroom.

There is a sheltered opening, a covered area in front of the house. The kitchen windows are on the right side.  The large windows to the left open from the smaller downstairs bedroom. The small square window is from the dowstairs bathroom.

This is the front doorway. The double doors open into the dining room. The angled walls hold the stairs to the upstairs bedroom.

The kitchen has walls and a door. There is a door from the kitchen to the side yard.

The kitchen has counter space along this entire wall.

The patio opens from the dining room. There is no roof over the patio, so a lot of light comes in.

This is the other side. This door opens into the smaller bedroom.

Both bedrooms have covered entrance doors.

The larger glass door opens into the larger downstairs bedroom.

This is the back of the house.

The back of the house. The doorway leads to the uncovered patio. The three windows are in the open floor plan dining/living room. the next windows open to the larger downstairs bedroom.

The stairs to the upstairs bedroom are in the angled wall behind the fireplace. It is narrow.

The window inside the slit bumps out to give a little extra space to the stairs. It starts at the height of the door, so there is more space under it in the entry.

Upstairs

Upstairs is another bedroom and bathroom with two storage areas.

The stairs end at a landing with the bathroom to the left, bedroom to the right and a closet in front of you.

This is the back of the upstairs room. There are a lot of windows.

This is the window from the upstairs bathroom. It opens into the slit on the front of the house.

What makes the Vanna Venturi House important?

It looks different now, but it REALLY looked different when it was first built.

Significance: The Vanna Venturi House is a national and international icon of Post Modern architecture, appearing in numerous architectural history texts. Robert Venturi (b. 1925), the architect who provided many of the theoretical underpinnings for the movement, designed the house; it is held to be the first significant Post Modern building constructed in the United States. The building represented one of a number of architectural pathways that emerged from and reacted to the Modern glass and steel boxes dominating design in the decades immediately following World War II. The house was his first solo commission and an intensely personal one as the client was his recently widowed mother; as such, the residence is also known as “Mother’s House.” The building is equal parts a representation of Venturi’s emerging concepts of contemporary architecture and physical manifestation of the specific needs of a strong and independent woman with whom he had a unique relationship.

Vanna Venturi House (Mother’s House)
Historical and Descriptive Data Historic American Buildings Survey
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior
Click to open the PDF

While laudable, Venturi’s ingenious plan, and comfortable and sophisticated assemblage of domestic space and interior features, taken alone, are not the reasons for which the house has reached iconic status in the history of American architecture. Rather, for Venturi, it was the contrast between the seemingly solid facade and the dynamism of the domestic space behind the facade. He completed Mother’s House in 1964 and two years later published Complexity and Contradiction, a foundational text for Post Modern architecture. In the book, Venturi pushed back against the hegemony and purity of Modernism, arguing that architectural hybridity—that which is “complex and contradictory”—was more reflective of American life in the mid-twentieth century.

Vanna Venturi House (Mother’s House)
Historical and Descriptive Data Historic American Buildings Survey
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior
Click to open the PDF

The broad sweep of the roof, the square windows, and the dominant chimney are elements drawn from traditional domestic architecture, and reinforced the idea of the house as a place of shelter. The broken pediment—inspired by Blenheim Palace, the English baroque masterpiece—and the placement of the segments of an arch intersecting with the dominant lintel of a trabeated porch opening reference mannerist architectural traditions. The broken pediment is more than a stylistic convention, it offers a viewshed into the complicated forms and spaces behind the facade, revealed as an individual moves into and through the space. With Mother’s House, Venturi provided a thoughtful alternative to orthodox Modernism and a viable demonstration of the opinion that “less is a bore.”

Vanna Venturi House (Mother’s House)
Historical and Descriptive Data Historic American Buildings Survey
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior
Click to open the PDF

I don’t have permission to use photos of the inside of the house, but you can find some really good photos and more information here:

• Postmodern architecture: Vanna Venturi House, Philadelphia by Robert Venturi Amy Frearson
• Making a home in a famous house by Liz Stinson Aug 21, 2019

The house is not open to the public, but you can see it from the road.