YABBA DABBA DOO!

I met myself 38 years ago this morning when I picked up a copy of Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour to refresh myself on the subject of ducks and decorated sheds.  I needed a refresher course because of an article I’d read in The Guardian about an architectural dispute between a homeowner and the town of Hillsborough, a wealthy suburb of Silicon Valley. (Pardon the redundancy.)  The offending structure at issue is derided as the Flintstone House and is pictured above.

I turned to Part II of the book, which is called Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or The Decorated Shed.  Here the authors make their case “for a new but old direction in architecture.” Confused?  From all the red underlining and marginalia in my copy, I apparently was not at all confused 38 years ago.  On the contrary, I was energetically engaged in a spirited one-way discussion with the authors about whether they were making a convincing case.  (Who was this person in 1981?  I don’t recognize her.)

Moving along.  The crux of Venturi’s argument for a new direction in architecture, a path that looks to the future for structure and to the past for meaning, lies in the difference between a decorated shed and a duck.

The Long Island Duckling

Venturi’s decorated shed is a building that applies symbols to an otherwise conventional structure.  The decorated shed uses ornament in a symbolic way to add historical reference and meaning, while it avoids hiding what goes on inside. For example, the arches and pediments above the windows and the rusticated base of the Palazzo Farnese below recall Classical Greek and Roman architecture, giving the building a layer of meaning not otherwise conveyed by its boxy, unremarkable form.  This decorated shed is immediately recognizable as a palazzo, and the ornamented fenestration tells us this is a patrician residence. 

The Palazzo Farnese

Venturi’s “duck” borrows the image of the iconic Long Island drive-in called The Long Island Duckling.  In his vocabulary, a duck is a special building that is a symbol.  In fact, it’s really a sculpture.  We all know ducks.  Frequently found along the roadside, they advertize what’s sold inside.  Here are two examples.

Orange Stand

 

Brown Derby

Or a duck might be a high rise, advertising the corporation that paid for it and/or the architect who designed it.  Here are a couple of examples.

The Fred and Ginger Restaurant, Prague, Frank Gehry

Which brings me to Hillsborough and a wealthy woman's duck.  The Flintstone House was conceived as a construction materials experiment  in the 1970s and was built using a technique that involved spraying concrete to create curved walls.   Originally it was painted beige and then white, which seems subtle in comparison to its current red and violet hues.  According to a friend who often drives from Marin County down to Silicon Valley, the hillside house is highly visible from I-280 below.  Its unconventional style competes with the more staid traditions of Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Eichler, star architects who both built in the town.  But it is not the unorthodox building material or the rambling configuration or even the garish color palette that is the subject of the current public nuisance litigation.  That has its genesis in 2017, when Florence Fang purchased the house. 

Attracted to its ducky-ness, Ms. Fang decided to add her two cents to the vocabulary and installed large-scale metal dinosaurs and Flintstones figures around the property.  She also installed a deck, a parking area for visitors and, in what The Guardian characterized as “a particularly subtle move,” an enthusiastic sign proclaiming: “Yabba-dabba-doo.” 

The town alleges that the house is a public eyesore out of step with community standards.  It also claims some of this work was done without permits and has tried to enjoin further construction and require the removal of the unwelcome theme park additions.  So far, Ms. Fang is vigorously defending her Brontosaurus-sized lawsuit, vowing to do whatever it takes to keep her duck.  If Hillsborough prevails, feathers will fly.  This is what happens when a duck crosses the road and becomes a pterodactyl.  It must return to the other side as a decorated shed.

Keep it real!

Marilyn