Dead Ducks

"We have been designing dead ducks," Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour proclaim at the end of Learning from Las Vegas.  It serves as a post-modern manifesto of the past and preferable future trend of architecture, using Las Vegas as a primary example.  Kitsch on kitsch versus white on white.  Las Vegas provides people with the false authenticity of the world, just enough for it to be convincing and worthwhile to the average person, whereas modern architecture has sought to establish a grand, utopic lifestyle, propagated through an international style.  The duck and the decorated shed, a famous categorization in architecture, represent modern and postmodern architecture, the correct and incorrect way to build, as they argue.

If you don't know, I'm a fan of modern architecture, and when I read Learning from Las Vegas the first time four years ago, I disagreed with most of what was said.  However, Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour bring up valid points in relation to public reception of architecture.  It's illogical to design for oneself, since most people won't appreciate the parts of the design that the architect prefers.  Thus kitsch is the way to go in terms of universal liking.  I still don't necessarily think this is the way that architecture has to be, since in some ways this would delegitimize the occupation of the architect.  

However people still appreciate some form of aesthetics, and designing buildings that are at the direct mercy of the program is undeniably the wrong approach.  Some sort of mixing of the two is obviously preferred, but that's not the way that people design, as far as I can tell.  The best monument or building is the one that tells you exactly what it is, they say.  

  

In the end architecture will always be successful or unsuccessful based off of the reactions of the masses.  Design for the client.  Architects may privilege themselves in deciding what "good architecture" looks like, but that's not the reality.  So we shouldn't design ducks, but we shouldn't designed dead ducks or living ducks or any kind of duck at all.  That is, unless the client wants a duck.