Duck and decorated shed
Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s two kinds of building (1972): the duck, whose form is its symbol, and the shed, whose symbol is applied.
The rules it illustrates
Both-and, not either-or. Let an element do more than one thing and belong to more than one order at once: a wall that is both inside and outside, a column that is both structure and sign.
Duck or decorated shed. A building can carry meaning in two ways: as a duck, whose whole form is shaped into a symbol, or as a decorated shed, a plain, efficient shelter with symbols applied to it. Prefer the shed.
On the Strip, the sign is bigger than the building. Where a building is seen from a moving car across a car park, communication depends on large signs placed at the road, and the building behind them can be a simple shed.
Where it appears in the book
In the styles Postmodernism.
In the chapters The Contemporary.