When they published Learning from Las Vegas in 1972, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi revolutionised architecture by claiming that the lessons the American desert town had to offer equalled those of the Eternal City. “Las Vegas is to the Strip what Rome is to the Piazza,” they declared. Organised to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this landmark publication, From Las Vegas to Rome explores dialogues between these cities through images taken by Iwan Baan, one of the most prolific photographers active today.
Inverting the authors’ counsel to look “from Rome to Las Vegas” to update the field of architecture, this exhibition looks at Las Vegas—and its spectacle of improbable buildings and infrastructure—to rethink Rome, a city shaped by power and money for centuries. Baan’s views of Las Vegas and Rome, taken expressly for this occasion, force us to question if we can regard architecture without moral judgment, a perspective Venturi encouraged for Las Vegas, in the ecological and social contexts of the twenty-first century.
Iwan Baan’s photographs of Las Vegas and Rome have been reproduced in the
book
Las Vegas: Bread and Circuses (2024), published by Lars Müller, which is available to purchase in the AA Bookshop.
Private View: Thursday 15 May from 6.30pm onwards
Exhibition dates: Friday 16 May - Saturday 12 July
Opening hours: Monday-Saturday: 4-8pm
Dutch photographer IWAN BAAN is known primarily for images that narrate the life and
interactions that occur within architecture. Born in 1975, Iwan grew up outside Amsterdam,
studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and worked in publishing and documentary
photography in New York and Europe. With his combined passion for documentary and space,
Baan’s photographs reveal our innate ability to reappropriate available objects and materials, in
order to find a place we can call our own. With no formal training in architecture, his perspective
mirrors the questions and perspectives of the everyday individuals who give meaning and context
to the architecture and spaces that surround us. As the inaugural recipient of the Julius Shulman
Institute Excellence in Photography Award, today, architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de
Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Toyo Ito, SANAA and Morphosis turn to Baan to
give their work a sense of place and narrative within their environments. Alongside his
architecture commissions, Iwan has collaborated on several successful book projects. Baan’s
work also appears in the pages of architecture, design and lifestyle publications such as The Wall
Street Journal, The New York Times, Architectural Record, Domus, Abitare and Architectural
Digest.
Photo: Iwan Baan
Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these, by emailing publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk
