Venturi Scott Brown-designed Abrams House faces demolition
The postmodern house, recently denied historic status by the Pittsburgh City Council, is now threatened by new owners? demolition plans A rare, striking example of postmodern architecture is under threat in Pittsburgh. Last week, city council voted 7-2 against historic designation for the Abrams House, designed by trailblazing PoMo firm Venturi Scott Brown and Associates.
Completed in 1982 for Irving and Betty Abrams, the two-bedroom residence is a playful take on traditions, much like Venturi Scott Brown?s landmarked?and AIA 25 Year Award-winning?Vanna Venturi House in Philadelphia. As Curbed?s architecture critic Alexandra Lange notes in a visit to the seminal work:
The house, which was designed and redesigned, is itself a gentle manifesto, the gable a blow against the aesthetic tyranny of the modernist flat roof; the square windows a blow against the aesthetic tyranny of transparent walls. He?s taken the poor little shivering glass houses and given them back their blanket. The Abrams House similarly breaks from conventional symmetry and pared-back order, opting instead for a curving roof reminiscent of a cresting wave and windows of dramatic proportions segmented by sunrise ?rays??or a ship?s wheel if that?s how you choose to see it.
When Robert Venturi passed away at age 93 last September, the future of the Abrams House was already uncertain. William and Patricia Snyder, owners of the neighboring Giovannitti House by Richard Meier, had purchased the Abrams Hou...
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