Denise Scott Brown, (born as Denise Lakofski) (Nkana, Rhodesia, October 3rd 1931) is a postmodern architect, urbanist, writer and teacher. Expert in urban and educational planning at universities such as Berkeley, Yale and Harvard, she wrote in 1972 in collaboration with Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, one of the most influential books in architecture in the second half of the twentieth century. It is considered the most famous woman architect of the second half of the twentieth century. She married Robert Venturi in 1967 and they have worked together since 1969, but in 1991 she was excluded from the Pritzker Prize prompting protests and debates about the difficulties of women architects to be recognized in their profession. Finally, they were awarded jointly with the AIA Gold Medal 2016 becoming the second woman in history to win the most prestigious award in the world of architecture and the first living woman to receive this galardón. She is a member of the architectural Studio Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates of Philadelphia (USA), which in 2012, following the retirement of Venturi, became VSBA Architects & Planners.
