Complexity And Contradiction In Architecture A Gentle...

Architectural works can be richer by reevaluating the complexity Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert venturi addresses architecture as the only place where redundant and simple construction, in thinking and in material reality takes shape. The objective of the series was to explore and promote ideas that were too complex or involved for exhibit, and were therefore written on museum exhibition. Though Venturis utilizes many photographic examples to support his arguments, the points he makes in Complexity and Contradiction are probably too involved and discursive to explain in a museum or gallery context. Even so, his are generally outlined in No straightforward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto. This opening†¦show more content†¦Some examples of this type of architectural recycling include old palazzos transformed into embassies or museum, or old city walls that become boulevards around downtown in later centuries. Systems, laws and order are the Conventional Element. While there are no fixed laws in architecture, Venturi explains that architects must decide what will work in a particular building or project. This rule also applies on a larger scale when considering neighborhoods, even cities. In this way, the complexities and contradictions at the heart of this book should manifest themselves in the architectural program as a reflection of those complexities and contradictions inherent in daily living. Several ideologies of architects are compared and contrasted within this chapter: Mies: create order out of the desperate confusion of our time; Kahn: by order I do not mean orderliness, and Le Corbusier, There is no work of art without a system. Though Venturis opinions seem to be more in line with Kahns statement, he credits the idea of order in some ways, suggesting that order must exist before it can be broken. In order to create the anomalies and uncertainties that give validity to architec ture, the architecture must be reacting against something. So, while there are no fixed laws,