Denise Scott Brown
Denise Scott Brown (née Lakofski; born October 3, 1931) is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia.[1]
This British surname is barrelled, being made up of multiple names. It should be written as Scott Brown, not Brown.
Denise Scott Brown
Architect
Simon Lakofski
Phyllis Hepker
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates
Venturi and Rauch
Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown
Early life and education[edit]
Born to Jewish parents Simon and Phyllis (Hepker) Lakofski, Denise Lakofski wanted to be an architect from the time she was five years old.[2] Pursuing this goal, she spent her summers working with architects, and from 1948 to 1952, after attending Kingsmead College,[3] studied in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand. She briefly entered liberal politics, but was frustrated by the lack of acceptance of women in the field.[4]
Lakofski traveled to London in 1952, working for the modernist architect Frederick Gibberd.[5] She continued her education there, winning admission to the Architectural Association School of Architecture to learn "useful skills in the building of a just South Africa", within an intellectually rich environment which embraced women. She was joined there by Robert Scott Brown, whom she had met at Witwatersrand in 1954, and graduated with a degree in architecture in 1955.[6]
Denise Lakofski and Robert Scott Brown were married on July 21, 1955. The couple spent the next three years working and traveling throughout Europe and part of their trip was to Italy with an itinerary devised by their friend, the architectural historian Robin Middleton with whom they had studied in South Africa and met up with again in London.[7]
In 1958, they moved to Philadelphia to study at the University of Pennsylvania's planning department. The following year, in 1959, Robert died in a car accident. Scott Brown completed her master's degree in city planning in 1960 and, upon graduation, became a faculty member at the university.[8]
Learning From Pop[edit]
In 1973, Denise Scott Brown wrote her essay "Learning From Pop", where she emphasized the importance of taking pop-culture into consideration when designing architecture.[23] This brought a symbolic element into architecture, with the use of time and the zeitgeist of the post-modern era, including the use of color and signage in architecture.[24] This was very similar to "Learning From Las Vegas" written by Scott Brown, Venturi, and Izenou in 1972.[25]
Room at the top[edit]
In 1989, Scott Brown published her famous essay, "Room at the Top? Sexism and the Star System in Architecture".[26] Although Scott Brown wrote the essay in 1975, she decided not to publish it at the time, out of fear for damaging her career. The essay describes her struggle to be recognized as an equal partner of the firm, in an architecture world that was predominantly male. She has since been an advocate for Women in Architecture and has spoken out about discrimination within the profession on several accounts.
Alongside Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel and Cornelia Oberlander, she is one of four female architects profiled in the 2018 documentary film City Dreamers.[41]