Robert Venturi, FAIA, has retired, and the Philadelphia firm he cofounded has new leadership—and a new name.
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, which Venturi founded with his wife, Denise Scott Brown, FAIA, is relaunching itself as VSBA, under president and principal Daniel K. McCoubrey, AIA. McCoubrey and principal Nancy Rogo Trainer, FAIA, will continue the work launched by Venturi and Scott Brown more than 20 years ago. (Scott Brown will continue publishing and presenting her work.)
McCoubrey, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, is the principal-in-charge for design at the Curtis Institute of Music’s Lenfest Hall as well as for renovations to the Allentown Art Museum. He recently led a renovation and restoration effort at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. A faculty member at Drexel University, McCoubrey has designed the Yale School of Medicine’s Anlyan Center for Medical Research and Education and planned much of the University of Michigan’s Life Sciences precinct.
Trainer, FAIA, who has worked with Venturi since 1987, is the principal-in-charge for the restoration of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s historic Fay House. She has designed campus plans for both Villanova University and Bryn Mawr College, among other university and museum projects, and she is a member of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
A titan in the field of American architecture for more than 50 years, Venturi won the Pritzker Prize in 1991, shortly after he and his wife reformed their then-firm as Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. His career achievements range from Philadelphia’s Guild House (1964, with Venturi and Rauch) to the Seattle Art Museum (in 1991, with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates). ARCHITECT reviewed a Las Vegas survey of the firm's work in 2010. Venturi has been labeled a “counterrevolutionary” for a design sentiment he has expressed throughout his career, one that he perhaps best captured himself: “Less is a bore.”
