Ugly and Ordinary

Definition

"Ugly and Ordinary" (often abbreviated U&O) is an aesthetic and theoretical stance developed by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour in Learning from Las Vegas (1977). It champions conventional, unremarkable, even "boring" architecture over the "heroic and original" monuments of Modernism. U&O architecture accepts its ordinariness, uses conventional materials and methods, and finds richness through symbolism and context rather than unique form. The term was initially used by critics (Philip Johnson, Gordon Bunshaft) to describe Venturi's work, but the authors embraced it.

Key Thinkers

• venturi-robert — Developed U&O as an alternative to heroic Modernism; argues for "thinking little" rather than monumental gestures
• scott-brown-denise — Co-developer; connected U&O to populist taste and commercial vernacular
• izenour-steven — Co-author of Learning from Las Vegas

Related Concepts

• decorated-shed — The building type associated with U&O aesthetics
• the-duck — The contrasting "heroic and original" approach
• commercial-vernacular — The source of U&O imagery (gas stations, motels, signs)
• everyday-architecture — Broader category of ordinary built environment
• vernaculars-of-capitalism — Related framework for understanding commercial building

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• source-notes/venturi-1977-learning-from-las-vegas
• source-notes/hawthorne-2023-fifty-years-learning-from-las-vegas
• Spatial seductions (Meninato 2018) — the aesthetic's artistic twin and its programmatic statement: Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction (p. 42, quoted by Meninato) — "An architect should use convention and make it vivid. I mean he should use convention unconventionally… I do not refer to the sophisticated products of industrial design, which are usually beautiful, but to the vast accumulation of standard, anonymously designed products connected with architecture and construction, and also to commercial display elements which are positively banal or vulgar in themselves and are seldom associated with architecture" — read by Meninato as the architectural affinity of Kienholz's garbage maxim ("the self-concept of our society can be inferred from its garbage"): "a full reconsideration of the value of ordinary, disposable, and conventional objects" performed by the readymade and the tableau, and offered to adaptive reuse as sustainability. See readymade, tableau, sustainability.
• Suitability, Simplicity and Proportion (de Wolfe 1913/2006) — the commonplace's domestic defense, a half-century before Venturi: "We are too afraid of the restful commonplaces, and yet if we live simple lives, why shouldn't we be glad our houses are comfortably commonplace? How much better to have plain furniture that is comfortable, simple chintzes printed from old blocks, a few good prints, than all the sham things in the world?" (pp. 83–84) — the ordinary defended in the interior against the fake and the grandiose (the 'Marie Antoinette' museum-room), with comfort rather than symbolism as the ordinary's reward.
• Why Architecture Matters (Goldberger 2009) — ordinariness as evidence rather than embarrassment: 'Much of the built world in the United States is ugly, but then again, most of nineteenth-century London seemed ugly to Londoners, too. The artlessness of most of our built environment today probably reveals as much about us…' (p. 15); the Passaic train on Main Avenue, rendered invisible by familiarity (p. 112).

Open Questions

• How does U&O relate to contemporary interest in "normcore" aesthetics?
• Is U&O a genuinely populist stance or an ironic architectural pose?
• What is the political dimension of embracing "ordinary" architecture in contexts of inequality?