When Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi, FAIA, received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1991, the award generated a good deal of grumbling from many in the architectural community for the person who wasn’t named: his wife and architectural partner of roughly three decades, Denise Scott Brown, FAIA. Venturi and Scott Brown met in 1960, married in 1967, and became architectural partners in 1969. They collaborated on buildings and books—including the widely influential (and controversial) urban study, Learning From Las Vegas, published in 1972. The fact that Scott Brown wasn’t also named a Pritzker recipient has been variously described as an “injustice” and a “blunder” by the architectural press. In March, the debate was reignited when Scott Brown was quoted by the Architects' Journal as saying, “They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony.
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