From Las Vegas to Rome: Photographs by Iwan Baan | American Academy in Rome

Curated by Lindsay Harris, interim Andrew Heiskell Arts Director.

Opening reception: Thursday, October 6, 7:00 to 9:00pm.

When they published Learning from Las Vegas in 1972, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi revolutionized architecture by claiming that the lessons the American desert town had to offer equaled those of the Eternal City. “Las Vegas is to the Strip what Rome is to the Piazza,” they declared. Organized to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this landmark publication, From Las Vegas to Rome explores dialogues between these cities through images taken by Iwan Baan, one of the most prolific architectural photographers active today. Inverting the authors’ council to look “from Rome to Las Vegas” to update the field of architecture, this exhibition looks at Las Vegas—and its extravaganza of improbable buildings and infrastructure—to rethink Rome, a city shaped by power and money for centuries. Baan’s views of Las Vegas and of Rome, taken expressly for this occasion, force us to question if we can regard architecture without moral judgment, a perspective Venturi encouraged for Las Vegas, in the ecological and social contexts of the twenty-first century.A Conversations/Conversazioni between Baan and the architect Sumayya Vally, titled “Learning from Las Vegas in the Twenty-First Century,” will be held in conjunction with the opening, from 6:00 to 7:00pm. The discussion will be moderated by Harris.Iwan Baan is the 2023 Richard Grubman and Caroline Mortimer Photographer in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. Sumayya Vally is the founder and director of Counterspace Studio in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Source: From Las Vegas to Rome: Photographs by Iwan Baan | American Academy in Rome