Her Visual Sharpness
29-year-old Denise Scott Brown takes a self-portrait in the mirror. [1] The scene shows frames and mirrors. On the left side, there are multiple blurred reflections visible. Standing in front of the mirror, Scott Brown does not look directly into the beholder’s eyes, but looks straight into her camera, focusing a point on the mirror. Her focus in the middle of the picture becomes sharp. Scott Brown’s agency lies in her different way of looking at things, an innovative gaze on the city fabric. With her book, Learning from Las Vegas, published in 1972 and written with Robert Venturi and Steve Izenour, she had created a new basis for the city’s investigation.
When she gets an idea into her head, she focuses and does everything to implement it. One focus is being in the vanguard of things. Indeed, Scott Brown always thinks about urban improvements, how people are going to live and interact in the future. In her view, architecture is not just about building void vessels. Scott Brown’s solution is not to build new buildings in response to an urban problem and hope that this will solve it: there is so much more behind her approach. Her ability to look beyond present configurations makes her architectural and urban approach remarkable. [2]
Her South African roots play an important role in connection with her gaze. In interviews, she often describes how the culture and social segregation in Johannesburg influenced everyday life. She learned to develop her creativity through the landscape. As such, it was important to carefully observe the environment. When she investigated Las Vegas, it was precisely this practice that helped her further. [3]
Scott Brown analyses the city through taking photographs, ordering them in series to understand and visualise her ideas. But even this meticulous approach she deems not sufficient. ‘You can’t just look at pictures and books; you have to go and look at the real thing.’ [4]
Through her travels across Europe, she gathered experience for expanding her knowledge of urban design. Her broad horizon is mirrored in the elaborated city patterns. Colourfully highlighted, the mapping method of land use shows, for example, where commercial and residential floors are situated. It is a basis for investigating complexities and their interplay. As an important writer, educator and lecturer at many universities like Pennsylvania and Harvard, she is able to translate her approach into a visual language. [5]
To conclude, her agency lies in the way she looks at cities. Compared to other architects, she looks at banalities that others neglect or ignore. An example of this is the mapping method. Many students and co-workers do not understand the approach, because it may seem too abstract at first glance. Nevertheless, she tries to sensitise the people to sharpen their gaze. Only a sharp gaze leads to innovation in the end.
Image Credit: Hilar Stadler and Martino Stierli (Eds.) Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2008.
1. Stadler, Hilar, et al. Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Zürich, 2008. 111.
2. EPFL. “Denise Scott Brown.” 21 September 2011. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
3. dérive Stadtforschung. Denise Scott-Brown: An African Perspective. Interviewed by Jochen Becker (metroZones). Vimeo. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
4. Scott Brown, Denise. Interview. “Denise Scott Brown on the Signs and Symbols for Living.” By Peter Barberie. Aperture. 26 March 2020. (Accessed 20 July 2022) Link.
5. EPFL, “Denise Scott Brown.”
