Tyrek Daniel
Professor Genell Anderson
History & Theory of Architecture II
2 April 2015
Book Review of Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture
Robert Charles Venturi is an American architect, originator principal of the architecture firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. He is also considered one of the foremost architectural dignitaries in the twentieth century dealing with post-modern architecture. Venturi worked in the field of architecture with a partner, which is wife, Denise Scott Brown. They worked together to shape the approach that architects, planners, and students encounter and sense architecture and the American assembled environment. Venturi attended school at the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania. He advanced summa cum laude from Princeton University as a member elect of Phi Beta Kappa and acquired the D’Amato Prize in architecture. He obtained his Master of Fine Arts from Princeton also. The years he spent being educated at Princeton was a dynamic factor in his development of a tactic to architectural theory and design. Contrasting to aesthetics terms, he extracted this tactic from architectural history in logic. He briefly worked under Eero Saarinen in Michigan, and later for Louis Kahn in Philadelphia. He was granted the Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, which he was able to tour and study in Europe for two years. Venturi also held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania, allocating for Kahn. He advanced as an associate professor. At the University of Pennsylvania is where he met his wife Denise. Venturi later taught at Yale and was a guest lecturer with Denise at Harvard. In 1991, Venturi was granted the Pritzker Prize, which is a career achievement in architecture. Robert Venturi published two writings that are imperative to modern architecture, Learning from Las Vegas: the Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form and Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture. Prior to reading Complexity and Contradiction, I was already aware of who Robert Venturi was and wanted to know what and how he contributed to architecture, but I have not read his writings. All I wanted to know was what was “complexity and contradictions” in his work of architecture. With Venturi not being labeled as a writer, he did a great deal of justice in architecturally critiquing and giving an apologia of his work. In Complexity and Contradictions, Venturi elaborated his work and self-critiqued his work. Venturi’s work appraises the actions of human beings and the outcome of physical forms upon their essence. There are eleven chapters in Complexity and Contradictions and they all are his architectural concept. Venturi’s first concept was non-straightforward architecture. He had rather use elements that were more devious. The elements that he used were the opposite of pure, clean, straightforward, articulated, designed, excluding, simple, direct, clear, unity, and clarity of meaning. Venturi utilized elements that were hybrid, compromising, distorted, ambiguous, conventional, accommodating, redundant, vestigial, innovating, inconsistent, equivocal, messy vitality, richness of meaning. Venturi broke these rules to prove a point that “less is bore” which is the opposite of what Mies van der Rohe believed “less is more.” Venturi preferred complexity and contradictions over simplification or picturesqueness. He explained that he believed that modern architects’ goals were to find a way to break with tradition. They are reformers who did not want to force simplicity. The result of prying simplicity was overpowering simplicity. The main reason he preferred complexity and contradiction is because if it was not present in the design, the design would be bland. Ambiguity was another one of Venturi’s concepts. He believes that in architecture, ambiguity is everywhere. Elements of architecture is identified as form, structure, texture, and material. To know the sufficiency of ambiguity, the elements have to be experienced in architectural program. Venturi discussed that contradiction has levels. The level of contradictions are based from conjunctions and applying it to the purpose of an element. The conjunctions Venturi used are “either-or,” “rather than,” and “both-and.” With these conjunctions, he applied them to programs in his design. As a result, he accomplished complexity and hierarchy of contradictions. Another concept of Venturi is order. By order, he does not mean orderliness, the cleanliness and diligence. What he means by order is how one experiences the elements in programming and environment. He says that order accommodates contradictions, but there is a limitation of order. What he means by imitations of order is that an architect is limited more to the organization of the building than to technique in the parts. According to Venturi, contradiction can either be adapted and/or juxtaposed. He says contradiction can be adapted by accommodating or compromising elements. Contradiction can be juxtaposed by containing opposites within a whole. Adapting and/or juxtaposing contradiction creates rhythmic complexities and contradictions, which then provides “order.” I believed Vincent Scully was correct. Complexity and Contradictions in Architecture was not an easy book. But I feel as though Robert Venturi did well in explaining what and how he contributed to architecture. This book persuaded me to apply his concepts to my schematics on projects. I also feel that he left his concepts open to additional concepts. In doing so, making it possible to take modern architecture to another level.