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    Robert Venturi

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    Johann Wiese
    Robert Venturi argues for an architecture of complexity and contradiction rather than simplicity or purity. He prefers hybrid, compromised, distorted, ambiguous, and redundant elements over straightforward or pure designs. Venturi believes complexity can create richness of meaning rather than clarity. He also discusses the concepts of "both-and" designs that incorporate multiple meanings and the tensions created by juxtaposing contradictory elements rather than simply accommodating them. Venturi advocates for an architecture that acknowledges internal inconsistencies and external environmental influences.

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    Robert Venturi

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    Johann Wiese
    190 views2 pages
    Robert Venturi argues for an architecture of complexity and contradiction rather than simplicity or purity. He prefers hybrid, compromised, distorted, ambiguous, and redundant elements over straightforward or pure designs. Venturi believes complexity can create richness of meaning rather than clarity. He also discusses the concepts of "both-and" designs that incorporate multiple meanings and the tensions created by juxtaposing contradictory elements rather than simply accommodating them. Venturi advocates for an architecture that acknowledges internal inconsistencies and external environmental influences.

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    Robert Venturi

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    Robert Venturi argues for an architecture of complexity and contradiction rather than simplicity or purity. He prefers hybrid, compromised, distorted, ambiguous, and redundant elements over straightforward or pure designs. Venturi believes complexity can create richness of meaning rather than clarity. He also discusses the concepts of "both-and" designs that incorporate multiple meanings and the tensions created by juxtaposing contradictory elements rather than simply accommodating them. Venturi advocates for an architecture that acknowledges internal inconsistencies and external environmental influences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    190 views2 pages

    Robert Venturi

    Uploaded by

    Johann Wiese
    Robert Venturi argues for an architecture of complexity and contradiction rather than simplicity or purity. He prefers hybrid, compromised, distorted, ambiguous, and redundant elements over straightforward or pure designs. Venturi believes complexity can create richness of meaning rather than clarity. He also discusses the concepts of "both-and" designs that incorporate multiple meanings and the tensions created by juxtaposing contradictory elements rather than simply accommodating them. Venturi advocates for an architecture that acknowledges internal inconsistencies and external environmental influences.

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    Robert Venturi

    Saturday, October 22, 2016

    6:25 PM

    COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION


    1. Non straightforward architecture - a gentle manifesto:
    I complexity and contradiction in architecture. I like elements which are hybrid rather than
    "pure", compromising rather than "dean", distorted rather than "straightforward",
    ambiguous rather than "articulated", perverse as well as impersonal, boring as wall as
    "interesting", conventional rather than "designed", accommodating rather than excluding.
    redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal
    rather than direct and dear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity, richness of meaning
    rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit function as well as the explicit function. More
    is not less.
    2. Complexity and contradiction vs simplification or picturesqueness:
    In orthodox modern architect's attempt to break with tradition and start all over again, they
    idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the diverse and the sophisticated.
    August Heckscher said that amid simplicity and order, rationalism is born, but rationalism
    proves inadequate in any period of upheaval. Then equilibrium must be created out of
    opposites. Such inner peace as men gain must represent a tension among contradictions
    and uncertainties. Mies for instance, makes wonderful buildings only because he ignores
    many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less
    potent.
    3. Ambiguity:
    Richness of meaning over clarity of meaning.
    4. Contradictory levels: the phenomenon of "both-and" in architecture:
    a. The tradition of "either-or" has characterized orthodox modern architecture: a sun
    screen is nothing else. Such manifestations of articulation and clarity are foreign to
    an architecture of complexity and contradiction - which tends to be "both-and" rather
    than "either-or". The source of the both-and phenomenon is contradiction, and its
    basis is hierarchy, which yields several meanings among elements with varying
    values.
    b. The Basilica has a mono-directional space, and the central-type church, which has
    omnidirectional space, represent alternating traditions in Western church plans. Yet
    the mannerist elliptical plan of the 16th century is both central and directional.
    c. The double meanings inherent in the "both-and" can involve metamorphosis as well
    as contradiction. The contradictory meanings usually dominate one another - but in
    complex relationships, the relationship is not always constant. If you move through or
    around a building, at one moment one meaning can be perceived as dominant, at
    another moment a different meaning seems paramount.
    5. Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The conventional element:
    A valid order accommodates the circumstantial contradictions as well as imposes them of
    a complex reality. It then submits improvisation within the whole, and tolerates
    qualifications and compromise. He emphasizes the inherent complexity and contradiction
    that develops from the program and reflects the inherent complexities and contradictions
    of living.
    The recognition of variety and confusion inside and outside, in program and environment,
    indeed, at all levels of experience, and the ultimate limitation of all orders composed by
    man, are the two justifications for breaking order. Order must exist before it can be broken.
    6. Contradiction adapted:
    Contradiction can be adapted by accommodating and compromising elements, or it can
    also be adapted by using contrasting superimposed or adjacent elements. Contradiction
    adapted is tolerant and pliable, while contradiction juxtaposed is unbending. Think of
    adaption as "distortion".
    7. Contradiction Juxtaposed:
    If contradiction adapted is a kid-glove treatment, then contradiction juxtaposed is a shock
    treatment.
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    treatment.
    8. The inside and the outside:
    The specific form of a plant or animal is determined not only by the genes in the organism
    and the cytoplasmic activities that these direct, but by the interaction between generic
    constitution and the environment.
    Since the inside is different from the outside, the wall - the point of change, becomes an
    architectural event. Architecture occurs at the meeting of interior and exterior forces of use
    and space. By recognizing the differences between the outside and the inside, architecture
    opens the door once again to an urbanistic point of view.
    9. The obligation toward the difficult whole:
    It is the difficult unity through inclusion, rather than the easy unity through exclusion. The
    difficult whole in an architecture of complexity and contradiction includes multiplicity and
    diversity of elements in relationships that are inconsistent or among the weaker kinds of
    perceptuality.
    http://www.slideshare.net/SivaRaman1/complexity-and-contradiction-in-architecture-by-robertventuri

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