APAH: House of New Castle County Venturi Scott Brown Rauch #arthistory #architecture #postmodern

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]What does billboards, birdwatching, music, and Greece have to do with each other? This is house in Newcastle County in Delaware. Designed by the architect duo Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who were romantic partners, and John Rauch who worked with them. The house is a great example of post-modern architecture. Where modernism was about less is more, post-modernism is like more is more. Bring on the past, bring on the ornament, and make it extra, but in a modern way. So, our post-modernist house has a little bit of whimsy and just a little bit of off-kilter humor.

[00:00:30]You got a Doric column, but it's flat.

[00:00:32]You got the idea of a pediment or a tympanum, but it's designed like an advertising billboard, which Denise loved to bring in the modern world in this way. You got big windows for birdwatching that the billboard kind of hides. A lot of handmade woodworking and horizontal slats to make it look like a barn. And a funky little music room for the professional musician wife and homeowner. Also has some fun fake pointed arches, a flat chandelier, whimsical post-modern painting. It's giving 90s Taco Bell. Yay, whimsy.