www.quondam.com/69/6886.htm

While we were admiring Mount Sharon Baptist Church and ruminating as to who the architect might be, Denise Scott Brown asked, "Who is the architect of Peirce College?"
I said, "Oh yes. That doorway."
Scott Brown, evidently surprised by my quick apposition to her query, said, "Yes, that doorway."

Peirce Junior College (if that is what it is still called) is located between Broad Street and 15th Street and between Pine and Lombard Streets, in a part of downtown Philadelphia that is much removed from Girard Avenue. I've known the Peirce College doorway since 1987 when I briefly worked at Broad and Spruce Streets, and passed the doorway everyday on my trip to and from the lot where I used to park my car. I had to wonder though as to how Scott Brown was familiar with this doorway. As I was driving home from recently photographing the Peirce College doorway, I passed through the 16th and Pine Streets intersection, and that is when I remembered that Venturi and Rauch Architects used to be at the northeast corner of 16th and Pine Streets, which is just a block and a half away from the Peirce College doorway.

Much of Learning from Las Vegas was probably composed within the second floor of this building.

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