Own an Icon

John Hill
22. July 2015
Photo: Courtesy of Kurfiss/Sotheby's

Venturi completed the house two years before his influential treatise Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture; the house appears to embody everything that title implies, from its house-like form with broken pediment and its asymmetrical window composition to its hidden front door and odd vertical circulation inside. It is widely considered the first Postmodern building in the United States, even though Venturi has denied that label.

Located in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Chestnut Hill, the house is listed at $1.75 million – steep for a relatively small house by today's standards but a reasonable sum for an icon of 20th century architecture.

Photo: Courtesy of Kurfiss/Sotheby's
Photo: Courtesy of Kurfiss/Sotheby's
Photo: Courtesy of Kurfiss/Sotheby's
Photo: Courtesy of Kurfiss/Sotheby's

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