(1940-2001)

While biking in Vermont, Steve Izenour suffered a heart attack he would not recover from. A partner of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown since 1969, he took part in the publication of Learning from Las Vegas, one of the most influential of architectural texts in the last third of the 20th century. Responsible for the studio’s audiovisual installations, exhibitions, and graphic projects, Izenour counted among his achievements the lighting of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge and his own parents’ house on Long Island. He also did much, didactically, for the universities of Pennsylvania, Kent, and Yale, and participated in the research project ‘Learning from Levittown’ and the design of the famous exhibition ‘Signs of Life: Symbols in the American City’ (1976), both of which benefitted from his ironic gaze at the most everyday, trivial aspects of America. In connection with this line of work, the New Jersey coastal town of Wildwood – with its repertoire of cheap motels, neons and road architecture – was the center of his attention in the last years. He was putting together a book about it that will now see the light posthumously.