The house of Venturi's mother, an icon of postmodernism, is for sale

Philadelphia, USA - In May 2013, archiweb informed about the sale of several famous American villas and the upcoming sale of the famous postmodern house designed by Robert Venturi for his mother. Vanna Venturi House has recently appeared in the listings of the Sotheby's real estate agency. The asking price is 1.75 million US dollars (42.8 million CZK).
     Robert Venturi (*1925), laureate of the Pritzker Prize in 1991, realized the house for his mother in the Philadelphia suburb of Chestnut Hill between 1962 and 1964. The construction costs of the wooden building at that time were 43 thousand USD. The house became a manifesto of the postmodern movement and reflects Venturi's "complexity and contradiction in architecture."
     The usable area of the house is 186 m². The house is basement-level, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a striking fireplace, whose body is the central compositional element of the house. Only child Venturi sensitively arranged the layout into a single ground floor so that his seventy-year-old mother, already a widow at that time, could manage in the house without outside help. Thus, the main living room, kitchen, and bedroom are located on the ground floor. Robert Venturi lived in the attic of the house until 1967 when he married Denise Scott-Brown. The house has inspired numerous architects and is often referred to as one of the ten buildings that changed America.
     Venturi's mother (1893-1975) sold the house in 1973 to the family of Thomas P. Hughes (1923-2014), a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. The owner's daughter Agatha had the house completely renovated in collaboration with architect Venturi and subsequently offered it for sale. The house regained its original green-gray color and is in perfect condition.

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