ISHAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND

PLANNING

ASSIGNMENT:
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE

TOPIC
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture
By Robert Venturi

SUBMITTED TO:
AR.VRUSHALI CHAUHAN SUBMITTED BY:
UBAID KHAN
ROLL NO: 1582381030
 ISHAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND
PLANNING

ASSIGNMENT:
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE

TOPIC
The Architecture of the City
By Aldo Rossi

SUBMITTED TO:
AR.VRUSHALI CHAUHAN SUBMITTED BY:
UBAID KHAN
ROLL NO: 1582381030
 Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture
By Robert Venturi
Introduction.

This article begins by exploring the nature of the relationship between the
interior and exterior design of a building. Traditionally, contrast between these
two dimensions was practiced but was replaced by the idea of continuity and flow
between the inside and outside in the 20th century. As the article demonstrates,
the evolution between these trends was marked by numerous opinions and
perspectives on the purpose of the exterior and interior of a building.

• An old school of thought was that the interior of a building worked to enclose
space and so should be separated by the outside. Of course, this notion ignored
the importance of location and context surrounding the building, which was of
equal importance. After all, if architecture is the orientation and organization of
space then the community too is a space within which the building sits.

• The article also explores the contrast between the interior and exterior designs
of a building by way of examples. Some designs show contrast in the top and
bottom of the building rather than interior and exterior and other examples show
different design ways in which the distinction between the interior and exterior
can be made.

• Some exterior designs like large domes, outer linings, and pillars are signs of
protection or power, and a few examples were of contradictory interior spaces. I
found it interesting when the author said that contradictory interior spaces does
not go against the idea of continuity asserted by modern architecture – it really
does all point to purpose and interpretation.
 • One point the author mentioned was that designing from both the inside and
the outside means that the wall becomes the point of change and contact
between the two works and it is at this intersection or meeting where
architecture takes place.

• At the same time, architecture requires a balancing of our vision, that it not be
too specific or too general and this requires considering all factors at play – the
context, location, and purpose of the building overall and each component. It is
without a doubt that each plays an equally important role because while the
interior must induce a particular sentiment or mood and purpose, the exterior
must withstand and open out to the personality of the city and into the ambience
of the building

Ten points of complexity and contradiction

1. Non straightforward Architecture : A Gentle Manifesto

2. Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification or Picturesqueness

3. Ambiguity 4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon of "Both-And" in

Architecture

5. Contradictory Levels Continued: The Double-Functioning Element

6. Accommodation and the Limitations of Order: The Conventional Element

7. Contradiction Adapted

8. Contradiction Juxtaposed

9. The Inside and the Outside

10. The obligation Toward the Difficult Whole

1.Nonstraight Forward Architecture :

A Gentle Manifesto I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I like
elements which are hybrid rather than "pure", compromising rather than "clean",
distorted rather than "straightforward", ambiguous rather than "articulated",
perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well 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 clear. 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 architects' 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. In their role as reformers, they puritanically advocated the
separation and exclusion of elements, rather than the inclusion of various
requirements and their juxtapositions. Modern architects with few exceptions
eschewed ambiguity. August Heckscher:"...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. " Paul Rudolph:"All
problems can never be solved...indeed it is a characteristic of the twentieth
century that architects are highly selective in determining which problems they
want to solve. 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." Forced simplicity results in oversimplification. Aesthetic
simplicity which is a satisfaction to the mind derives, when valid and profound,
from inner complexity. When complexity disappears, blandness replaces
simplicity.
3.Ambiguity
Ambiguity and tension are easily found in complex and contradictory architecture.
Architecture is form and substance - - abstract and concrete and its meaning
derives from its interior characteristics and its particular context. - An
architectural element is perceived as form and structure, texture and material.
These oscillating relationships, complex and contradictory, are the source of the
ambiguity and tension characteristic to the medium of architecture. - The
conjunction "or" with a question mark can usually describe ambiguous
relationships.

4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon Of "Both-and" In

Architecture
Contradictory levels of meaning and use in architecture involve the paradoxical
contrast implied by the conjunctive "yet". The tradition of "either-or" has
characterized orthodox modern architecture: a sun screen is probably nothing
else; a support is seldom an enclosure. Such manifestations of articulation and
clarity are foreign to an architecture of complexity and contradiction, which tends
to include "both-and" rather than "either-or". The source of the both-and
phenomenon is contradiction, and its basis is hierarchy, which yields several levels
of meanings among elements with varying values. An architecture which includes
varying levels of meaning breeds ambiguity and tension. Kahn, "Architecture must
have bad spaces as well as good spaces." The basilica, which has 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 sixteenth century is both central and directional. The double meanings
inherent in the phenomenon both-and can involve metamorphosis as well as
contradiction. In equivocal relationships one contradictory meaning usually
dominates another, but in complex compositions 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.CONTRADICTORY LEVELS CONTINUED: THE DOUBLE-

FUNCTIONING ELEMENT
• The “double-functioning” element and "both-and“ are related, but there is a
distinction: the double-functioning element pertains more to the particulars of
use and structure, while both-and refers more to the relation of the part to the
whole. Bothand emphasizes double meanings over double-functions.

6.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 admits improvisation within the whole,
and tolerates qualifications and compromise. Now I shall emphasize the
complexity and contradiction that develops from the program and reflects the
inherent complexities and contradictions of living. Contradictions representing
the exceptional inconsistency that modifies the otherwise consistent order, or
representing inconsistencies throughout the order as a whole, is a relationship
called "contradiction accommodated". Kahn said, "by order I do not mean
orderliness." • 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. When circumstances defy order, order should bend or break: "anomalies
and uncertainties give validity to architecture." "The exception points up the rule.
Contrast supports meaning." Order must exist before it can be broken.
7.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. Kahn, "It is the role of design to
adjust to the circumstantial."
 The Facades of two eighteenth century Neapolitan villas express two kinds,
or two manifestations, of contradiction. In the Villa Pignatelli (62 ) the
mouldings, which dip, become string courses and window heads at once. In
the Villa Palomba (63) the windows, which disregard the bay system and
puncture the exterior panels, are by interior needs. The mouldings in the
first villa adapt easilv to their contradictory functions. The windows of the
second villa clash violently with the panel configurations and pilaster
rhythm: the inside order and the outside order are in an uncompromisingly
contradictory relation.

8. Contradiction juxtaposed If "contradiction adapted"

corresponds to the kid glove treatment, "contradiction juxtaposed" involves the
shock treatment. Juxtaposed directions create rhythmic complexities and
contradictions. Super adjacency is inclusive rather than exclusive, relating
contrasting and otherwise irreconcilable elements, containing opposites within a
whole. It can accommodate the valid non sequitur, and allow a multiplicity of
levels of meaning, since it involves changing contexts--seeing familiar things in an
unfamiliar way and unexpected points of view. It is in contrast to the
perpendicular interpenetration of space and form characteristic of the work of
Wright. Super adjacency can exist between distant elements. Superimpositions
change as one moves in space. Super adjacency can also occur where the
superimposed elements actually touch instead of being related only visually. A
vivid tension evolves from all these juxtaposed contradictions. Some city planners,
however, are now more prone to question the glibness of orthodox zoning and to
allow violent proximities in their planning, at least in theory, than are architects
within their buildings.

9. 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 genetic constitution and environment. A given gene does not control a
specific trait, but a specific reaction to a specific environment." One of the
powerful twentieth century orthodoxies has been the necessity for continuity
between the outside and the inside. The essential purpose of the interiors of
buildings is to enclose rather than direct space. The essential purpose of the
interior of buildings its to enclose rather than direct space, and to separate the
inside from the outside. The inside is different from the outside. Elier Saarinen, "a
building is the 'organization of space in space'." So is the city and the room.
Sometimes the contradiction is not between the inside and th outside but
between the top and the bottom of the building (curving dome vs. rectangular
bases). Crowded intricacy within a rigid frame has been a pervasive idea.
Containment and intricacy have been characteristic of the city as well.
Contradiction between the inside and the outside may manifest itself in an
unattached lining which produces an additional space between the lining and the
exterior wall. Detached lining leave spaces in between, but the architectural
recognition of the in-between varies.

10. THE OBLIGATION TOWARD THE DIFFICULT WHOLE

I have referred to a special obligation toward the whole because the whole is
difficult to achieve. 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 perceptually. Concerning the
positions of the parts, such an architecture encourages complex and contrapuntal
rhythms over simple and single ones. Two extremes--a single part and a
multiplicity of parts--read as wholes most easily, and the next easiest whole is the
trinity.

But an architecture of complexity and contradiction also embraces the "difficult

numbers of parts--the duality, and the medium degrees of multiplicity." Our
tendency to distort the program and to subvert the composition in order to
disguise the duality is refuted by a tradition of accepted dualities, more or less
resolved, at all scales of building and planning. Inflection in architecture is the way
in which the whole is implied by exploiting the nature of the individual parts,
rather than their position or number. The valid fragment is economical because it
implies richness and meaning beyond itself. The inflected element is a directional
form corresponding to directional space. Inflection accommodates the difficult
whole of a duality as well as the easier complex whole.