Forms, Forces, Functions

By Denise Scott Brown. Introduction by Elizabeth Schambelan 
 
Forthcoming Spring 2027

This vibrant collection of essays by the iconic architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown captures the visionary mind that has transformed our understanding of contemporary aesthetics, semiotics, and experience.

Denise Scott Brown is a preeminent figure in twentieth-century architecture and urban planning, but her influence extends far beyond these fields. Her groundbreaking, deeply humanist approach to design considers the built environment as a shared, lived-in space, shaped by cultural, social, and historical structures and forces. She is widely known for her seminal 1972 text Learning from Las Vegas, coauthored with her partner, Robert Venturi, which gave form to knowledge that fundamentally changed how we understand the spaces we inhabit. Scott Brown’s writing, like her architecture, is eclectic, witty, and compelling, drawing upon theory and her own life experiences to reorient our attention toward the needs of everyday people.

This new addition to David Zwirner Books’s ekphrasis series brings together approximately fifteen essays by Scott Brown that exemplify her spirit of inquiry. Together, they offer us an invitation to really see and think—and then to act through writing, designing, and building. An introduction by Elizabeth Schambelan situates these essays within Scott Brown’s extraordinary career and underscores their continued relevance today as we seek to both determine and grasp the unfolding new worlds around us. 
 
The first title in the ekphrasis series to focus on the built environment, this volume expands the series’ driving investigation into reading the social, cultural, and architectural landscapes around us with renewed attention.