Introduction : instruction as provocation / Aron Vinegar and Michael J. Golec -- Aesthetic or anaesthetic : a Nelson Goodman reading of the Las Vegas Strip / Ritu Bhatt -- Format and layout in Learning from Las Vegas / Michael J. Golec -- Photorealism, kitsch, and Venturi / Jean-Claude Lebensztejn -- Theory as ornament / Karsten Harries -- Mobilizing visions : representing the American landscape / Katherine Smith -- On billboards and other signs around (Learning from) Las Vegas / John McMorrough -- Signs taken for wonders / Dell Upton -- The melodrama of expression and inexpression in the duck and decorated shed / Aron Vinegar -- Learning from Las Vegas-- and Los Angeles and Reyner Banham / Nigel Whiteley