ABSTRACT
Grand’s restaurant was made famous by its architecture. One of Robert Venturi’s earliest works, Grand’s was realised in 1962 – the same year as his iconic Vanna Venturi House. The new restaurant was to be located on the ground floor, the two upper floors would house flats and there would be one communal entrance from the street. An important characteristic of the lot was the central load-bearing wall that divided the two houses on all three floors. The most striking element of the establishment was the large sign above the restaurant: an enormous three-dimensional coffee cup that hung from the façade like an old-fashioned diner sign. The graphics in the restaurant were also very simple: large painted letters and stripes on the walls formed a band that ran across the entire height, as well as the length, of the room; the letters had the character of conventional stencils and, once again, spelled the name of the restaurant.
