The Vanna Venturi House, one of the first prominent works of the postmodern architecture movement, is located in the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[1] The five-room house stands only about 30 feet (9 m) tall, but has a monumental front facade, an effect achieved by intentionally manipulating the architectural elements that indicate a building's scale.

[2] Elements such as a non-structural applique arch and "hole in the wall" windows were an open challenge to Modernist orthodoxy, as described in Venturi's 1966 book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture .

Vanna was a feminist, socialist, pacifist, and vegetarian with an active intellectual life, reading books mostly on history, current events, and biography.

The family made summer trips to Arden, Delaware, and Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, two communities organized by architect William Lightfoot Price, who was inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement and the then-radical economics of Henry George.

[5] Robert Jr. attended a Quaker grade school, then the Episcopal Academy, and later Princeton University, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees.

[6] As a widow nearing the age of 70 as the house was completed, Vanna required that all her daily routine could be conducted on one floor, possibly with the help of a live-in caretaker.

[4] Her son, the architect, occupied the second floor, which contains a bedroom/studio with a large lunette window, a private balcony, and a half-bath on the stair landing.

[7] The house was sold in 1973 to Thomas P. Hughes, an historian, author, and university professor, and his wife, Agatha, an editor and artist.

The Hughes family maintained and lived in the house, keeping it as original and authentic as possible, until 2016 when it was sold to a local, private buyer.

[11] He states: Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture.

[13] On the front elevation the broken pediment or gable and a purely ornamental applique arch reflect a return to Mannerist architecture and a rejection of Modernism.

Thus the house is a direct break from Modern architecture, designed in order to disrupt and contradict formal Modernist aesthetics.

[25] The Esherick and Vanna Venturi Houses invite comparison, having been built within two years and one block of each other by Philadelphia's best-known 20th century architects.

[30] In 2005, the United States Postal Service featured the house on a postage stamp in a series of "Twelve masterworks of modern American architecture.

"[31] Venturi's cardboard and wood models of the house, at several design stages, are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The house, including the interior, and the architect were featured on the WTTW television production: 10 Buildings That Changed America.