Vanna Venturi House, plan, ground floor

Given the tastes and interests of her architectural “parents,” it should have surprised no one that the Vanna Venturi House in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania (1961–64; plate 1; fig. 1), the first-born child of the Postmodern movement, turned out to be a girl — not a stalwart son destined to go forth into the world boldly proclaiming a new architectural vision, but a rather pretty, mercurial daughter who, wreathed in diffidence and irony, made a case for change through the subtle art of persuasion. …