Complexity and contradiction in architecture by Robert venturi

ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM
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Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture
Robert Venturi

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A.Sivaraman , First year-M.ARCH General ,HINDUSTAN UNIVERSITY, Chennai.

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.

2.Complexity And Contradiction Vs. Simplification Or Picturesqueness

Forced
simplicity
oversimplification.

results

in

1. Johnson - wiley house , New cannon

3. Aalto Church, Vuoksennlska, near lrnatra

Critics of Aalto’s,
For instance, have liked
him mostly for his sensitivity to
natural materials and his fine
detailing, and have considered his
whole
composition
willful
picturesqueness. ventuari do not
consider Aalto's Imatra church
picturesque.

In the Wiley House, for
instance (1), in contrast to his glass
house ( 2 ) , Philip Johnson
attempted to go beyond the
simplicities of the elegant pavilion.
He
explicitly
separated
and
articulated the enclosed "private
functions" of living on a ground floor
pedestal, thus separating them from
the open social functions in the
modular pavilion above.

EXAMPLES

But even here the
building becomes a diagram of an
oversimplified program for living-an
abstract theory of either-or. Where
simplicity cannot work, simpleness
results.
Blatant simplification means bland
architecture.
“Less is a bore”.
2. Johnson Glass house , New cannon

4.Mlcheluccl Church of the Autostrada near Florence

By repeating in the massing the
genuine complexity of the tripledivided plan and the acoustical ceiling
pattern (3), this church represents a
justifiable expressionism different
from the willful picturesqueness of
the haphazard structure and spaces of
Giovanni Michelucci's recent church
for the Autostrada (4).

Aalto's complexity is part of the
program and structure of the whole
rather than a device justified only by
the desire for expression.

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.

Villa Savoye

The size of Vanbrugh's forepavilions at Grimsthorpe

The Casino di Pio IV ,Vatican

in relation to the back pavilions is
ambiguous from a distance: are
they near or far, big or small?

The ornamental cove in the Casino
di Pio IV in the Vatican is perverse:

is it a square plan or not?

Vanbrugh's fore-pavilions at Grimsthorpe

is it more wall or more vault?

3.AMBIGUITY
• The calculated ambiguity of expression is based on the confusion of experience as reflected in the architectural program. This
promotes richness of meaning over clarity of meaning. As Empson admits, there is good and bad ambiguity ". . . [ambiguity]
may be used to convict a poet of holding muddled opinions rather than to praise the complexity of the order of his mind."
Nevertheless, according to Stanley Edgar Hyman, Empson sees ambiguity as "collecting precisely at the points of greatest
poetic effectiveness, and finds it breeding a quality he calls 'tension' which we might phrase as the poetic impact itself."
• These ideas apply equally well to architecture

Palazzo di Propaganda Fide

Lutyens' facade at Nashdorn

Luigi Moretti's Apartment in Rome,

The central dip in Lutyens' facade at Nashdorn
facilitates skylighting:
is the resultant duality resolved or not?

Bernini's pilasters on the Palazzo di
Propaganda Fide :

are they positive pilasters or negative
panel divisions?

.

are they one building with a split
or two buildings joined?

4. Contradictory Levels: The Phenomenon Of "Both-and" In Architecture
"BOTH-AND" " relation of the part to the whole "

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.

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

"BOTH-AND" " relation of the part to the whole "

Examples

is simple outside yet complex inside

Sir Edwin Lutyens
Middleton Park

Le Corbusier's Shodhan House
is closed yet open-a cube,
precisely closed by its corners, yet randomly
opened on its surfaces;

Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye

entrance gallery at Middleton
Park --is directional space, yet it
terminates at a blank wall;

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.

Pantheon rome

Le Corbusier's

d'Habitation

The relieving arches in the
Pantheon , in this case not originally
part of the visual expression, similarly
generate a wall structurally doublefunctioning

The brise-soleils in the Unite &Habitation
in Marseilles are structure and
porches as well as sunscreens.
bearing wall and frame at once.

Andrea Palladio palazzo valmarana

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.
A propensity to break the order can justify exaggerating it. In engineering it is the bridge that vividly expresses the play of
exaggeratedly pure order against circumstantial in consistencies. A play of order and compromise also supports the idea of renovation in
building, and of evolution city planning. Indeed, change in the program of existing buildings is a valid phenomenon and a major source of
the contradiction I am endorsing. An architect should use convention unconventionally, since the convention in architecture can be another
manifestation of an exaggeratedly strong order more general in scope.
• The main justification for honky-tonk elements in architectural order is their very existence. They are what we have. Are we today
proclaiming advanced technology, while excluding the immediate, vital if vulgar elements which are common to our architecture and
landscape? The architect should accept the methods and the elements he already has. The architect's experimentation is limited more to
his organization of the whole than to technique in the parts. "The architects selects as much as creates." Gestalt psychology maintains that
context contributes meaning to a part and change in context causes change in meaning. Modern architects have seldom used the common
element with a unique context in an uncommon way. It was Le Corbusier who juxtaposed objets trouves and commonplace element.

6.Accommodation And The Limitations Of Order: The Conventional Element
An historical example will perhaps help to illustrate this relation of order and
exception. The applique of arches and pilasters on the Palazzo Tarugi (60)
maintains itself against the sudden impositions of "whimsical" windows
and asymmetrical voids. The exaggerated order, and therefore exaggerated unity,
along with certain characteristics of scale, are what make the monumentality in
the Italian palazzo.

60.Montepulciano-Hauptplatz-Palazzo-Tarugi

In engineering it is the bridge (61) that vividly expresses the play of exaggeratedly
pure order against circumstantial inconsistencies. The direct, geometric order of the
upper structure, derived from the sole, simple function of conveying vehicles on an
even span, strongly contrasts with the exceptional accommodation of the structural
order below, which through distortion-the expedient device of elongated or
shortened piers– accommodates the bridge to the uneven terrain of the ravine.

61.Care and giannelli, poggettone and pecora vecchia, austostrda del sole, ologna- Florence section

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."
Besides circumstantial distortion, there are other techniques of adaptation. The expedient device is an element
in all anonymous architecture that is dependent on strong conventional order, used to adjust the order to
circumstances which are contradictory to it. Is there not a similar validity to the vitality of Times Square in which the
jarring inconsistencies of buildings and billboards are contained within the consistent order of the space itself? One
thing is clear--cities, like architecture, are complex and contradictory.

7.Contradiction Adapted

Moulding adopt contradiction functions

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.
Window clash violently with panel configuration and pilaster rhythm

In the first facade contradiction is adapted by accommodating and
compromising its elements- in the second facade contradiction is juxtaposed by using
contrasting superimposed or adjacent elements. Contradiction adapted is tolerant and
pliable. It admits improvisation. It involves the disintegration of a prototype and it ends
in approximation and qualification. On the other hand, contradiction juxtaposed is
unbending. It contains violent contrasts and uncompromising oppositions. Contradiction
adapted ends in a whole which is perhaps impure. Contradiction juxtaposed ends in a
whole which is perhaps unresolved.

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.

8. Contradiction juxtaposed
Le Corbusier supplies a rare modern example of juxtaposed
contradictions in the Millowners' Building in Ahmedabad (90).
From the important approach from the south, the repetitive
pattern of the brise-soleil invokes rhythms which are violently
broken by the entrance void, the ramp, and the stairs. These latter
elements, consisting of varying diagonals, create violent
adjacencies from the side and violent super adjacencies from the
front, in relation to the rectangular static floor divisions within
the boxlike form.
The juxtapositions of diagonals and perpendiculars also
create contradictory directions: the meeting of the ramp

and stairs is only slightly softened by the exceptionally
large void and by the modified rhythm of the elements at
that part of the facade.
But these contradictions in the visual experience are even richer
when you move closer and penetrate the building. The
adjacencies and super adjacencies of contrasting scales,
directions, and functions can make it seem like a miniature
example of Kahn's viaduct architecture

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.

9. THE INSIDE AND THE OUTSIDE
Residual space in between dominant spaces with varying degrees of openness can occur at the scale of the city and
is a characteristic of the fora and other complexes of late Roman urban planning. Residual space that is open might be
called "open poche". The poche in the walls of Roman and Baroque architecture are alternative means of
accommodating an inside different from the outside. Aldo van Eych, "Architecture should be conceived as a configuration
of intermediary places clearly defined." This implies a break away from the contemporary concept of spatial continuity
and the tendency to erase every articulation between spaces, i.e., between outside and inside, between one space and
another. Instead the transition must be articulated by means of defined in-between places which induce simultaneous
awareness of what is significant on either side.
Residual space is seldom economic. It is leftover, inflected toward something more important beyond itself.
Contradictory interior space does not admit Modern architecture's requirement of a unity and continuity of all
spaces. Nor do layers in depth, especially with contrapuntal juxtapositions, satisfy its requirements of economic and
unequivocal relationships of forms and materials. And crowded intricacy within a rigid boundary contradicts the modern
tenet which says that a building grows from the inside out. Contrast and even conflict between exterior and interior
forces exist outside architecture as well. Since the inside is different from th 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 difference between the inside and the outside, architecture opens the door once again to an urbanistic
point of view.

9. THE INSIDE AND THE OUTSIDE

Aalto's dormitory at M.I.T. (205) is exceptional. The curving
front along ;he river and its fenestration and materials
contrast with the rectangularity and other characteristics of
the rear: exterior as well as interior forces of use and space
and structure vary back and front. And the P.S.F.S. building,
which is a tower, has four different sides because it recognizes
its specific urban setting: party walls, street facades backs,
fronts and corner.

Here the freestanding building becomes a fragment of a
greater exterior spatial whole, but the typical freestanding
building of Modern architecture, except for some surface
treatment and screens, which act to de-emphasize the spatial
enclosure or to recognize orientation differences, seldom
changes front and back for exterior spatial reasons. To the
eighteenth century, also, this was a conventional idea.

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. If inflection can occur at many scales--from a detail
of a building to a whole building--it can contain varying degrees of intensity a well. The dominant binder, as a third
element connecting a duality, is a less difficult way of resolving a duality than inflection. The equal combinations of
parts achieve a whole through superimposition and symmetry rather than through dominance and hierarchy. An
architecture that can simultaneously recognize contradictory levels should be able to admit the paradox of the whole
fragment: the building which is a whole at one level and a fragment of a greater whole at another level.

10. THE OBLIGATION TOWARD THE DIFFICULT WHOLE A comparison of the entrance fronts of Blenheim
Palace (215) and Holkham Hall (216) illustrates the use
of inflection on the exterior. Holkham Hall achieves an
extensive whole through the addition of similar wholes
which are always independent: most of its bays are pedimented
pavilions which could stand alone as single buildingsHolkham Hall could almost be three buildings in a row.
Blenheim achieves a complex whole through fragmental parts,
separate but inflected. The last two bays of the central block,
when taken alone, are dualities incomplete in themselves. But
in relation to the whole they become inflected terminations to
the central pavilion, and a confirmation of the pedimented
center of the whole composition.
The piers at the corners of the porch and the broken
pediments above them are also terminal inflections, similarly
reinforcing the center. The bays at the far extremities of this
enormous facade form pavilions which are not inflected. They
are perhaps expressive of the relative independence of the
kitchen and stable wings. Vanbrugh's
method of creating a strong whole in such a large and
diverse if symmetrical facade follows the traditional Jacobean
method of the century before: at Aston Hall (217)
the wings of the forecourt facade and the towers, parapet
pediments, and windows inflect in position and/or shape
toward its center.

Complexity and contradiction in architecture by Robert venturi

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