Postmodern Architect
Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi (b.1925)
• Background
• Major Theoretical Works
– Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
– Learning from Las Vegas
• Selected Design Works
Robert Venturi (b.1925)
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Architects
Theorists
Teachers
Award Winner
Bibliography
• 1947: graduated (summa cum laude) from Princeton University
• 1950: M.F.A. from Princeton University
• 1954 to 1956: furthered his studies as a Rome Prize Fellow at
the American Academy in Rome
• Taught an architectural theory course at the University of
Pennsylvania, School of Architecture.
• In the past three decades: lectured at numerous institutions
including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, Rice and the
American Academy in Rome.
• 1991: Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate
• Practices architecture under the name of Venturi, Scott Brown
and Associates (VSBA)
• Always calls himself a Modernist
Venturi’s Books
• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
– Explores physical reactions to forms and is understanding in
methods
• Learning from Las Vegas (1972)
– Is concerned with the function of sign in human art (buildings)
and is fundamentally linguistic in its approach
• A View from the Campidoglio: Selected Essays, 19531984. (1984)
• Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture (1996)
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture
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Inspired “Postmodern Architecture”
An early (if not first) attempt of Anti-Modernism
Ironic (“More is Not Less” and “Less is Bore”)
Examples from the Past (Mannerism, Baroque,
Rococo) against modernist’s buildings
• “Polemic” theory of architecture vs. normative
theory of architecture
Venturi with
Le Corbusier
Vincent Scully compared
Le Corbusier
Venturi
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• Inspired by the urban façade of
Italy
• Endless adjustments to the
counter-requirements of inside
and outside
• Inflection with all the business of
everyday life
• Complex spatial containers and
definers of streets and squares
• Accommodation
Inspired by Greek Temple
Sculptural form
Actively heroic character
Sculptural actors in vast
landscape
Corbu’s and Venturi’s Approach
Scully described
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Venturi’s Proposal
Recognize complexity
Respect what exists
Against purism
Humanistic
Architecture and History
Making and experience of architecture:
• Are always critical historical acts (involving what
architects and the viewers have learned)
• Depend upon the quality of our historical
knowledge
Venturi's Standpoint
(in Preface to Complexity and Contradiction Architecture)
• Ideas on architecture are a by product of the criticism, (which
accompanies working)
• Analysis and Comparison => tools for criticism
• Architecture is open to analysis like any other aspects of experience
• Analysis => breaking up architecture into elements
• Comparison => making architecture more vivid
• Try to be guided not by habit but by a conscious sense of the past-by precedent, thoughtfully considered
• Examples are from Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo
• What he likes in architecture: complexity and contradiction
Venturi’s Intentions
[or excuses] in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
• To be suggestive (ชี้แนะ) rather than dogmatic
(สอนสัง่ )
• Method of historical analogy can be taken only
so far in architectural criticism
• Should an artist go all the way with his or her
philosophies?
A Gentle Manifesto
• “I like complexity and contradiction in architecture”
• “I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness of incompetent
architecture nor the precious intricacies of picturesqueness or
expressionism”
• “Richness and ambiguity of modern experience”
• “A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning and
combinations of focus: its space and its elements become
readable and workable in several ways at once”
• “Must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy
unity of exclusion” (more is not less)
Rather than/ Prefer…to
(opposite meaning words)
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hybrid …………………..
compromising …………
distorted ………………..
ambiguous …………….
conventional …………..
accommodating ……….
redundant ………………
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pure
clean
straightforward
articulated
designed
excluding
simple
Rather than/ Prefer…to
(opposite meaning words)
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inconsistent and equivocal
messy vitality ……………
richness of meaning ……
both-and …………………
black, white and grey …..
implicit function …………
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direct and clear
obvious unity
clarity of meaning
either-or
black and white
explicit function
as well as
(equal but different meaning words)
• complex ……………… •
• perverse ……………… •
(แสดงออกอย่างผิดๆ)
• boring ………………… •
• vestigial ………………. •
(เหลือทราก)
contradictory
Impersonal
interesting
innovating
Complexity and Contradiction vs.
Simplification or Picturesqueness
• “Less is More” disregards complexity and
justify exclusion for expressive purpose
Selective
• Permit the architect to be highly selective
in determining which problem [he wants]
to solve
• Resulted in oversimplification
Complexity
Oversimplification
Ambiguity
• Complexity of meaning
causes ambiguity and
tension
• Juxtaposition and duality
cause ambiguity
• Plural interpretation
• Planned incongruity
• Elements of paradox
and ambiguity
Ambiguity
Contradictory
Levels: Both-And
in Architecture
• Simple outside yet
complex inside
• Close yet open
• Duality yet unity
• Allow hierarchy: several
level of meanings
• Double meanings over
double functions
Both-And
The Inside and the Outside
• Contrast between the inside and the outside can be a
major manifestation of contradiction in architecture
• Space in space, things within things
• Contradiction between the inside and outside may
manifest itself in an unattached lining which produces an
additional space between the lining and the exterior wall
Inside and Outside
Inside
and
Outside
(façade)
The Obligation Towards
the Difficult Whole
• The whole is more than the
sum of its parts (Gestalt
psychology)
• It is the difficult unity through
inclusion rather than the easy
unity through exclusion
• The degree of wholeness
can vary
• Parts can be more or less
whole in themselves
Difficult Whole
Learning From Las Vegas
• Analysis of contradictory and messy existing
environments
• Application of (critical and analytical) theories into
architecture
Background
• The lost of symbolism in architecture (the use of
icons, symbols, or inscriptions on architecture)
• Modernists use art or icons (painting or
sculpture) not on architecture but near
architecture or in space
• A design research project for students at Yale
Contents
• Study Part: Analysis of the commercial strip of
Las Vegas
• Implication Part: Generalizing and theorizing into
symbolism in architecture
The Commercial Strip
Learning From Las Vegas (Analysis)
• Objectively analyze the commercial strips of Las Vegas
as a phenomenon of architectural communication
(without discussion of values)
– Revolutionary for architects
– To question how we look at things
• Architects always look judgmentally at the environment,
dissatisfied with existing conditions and want to change
rather than try to enhance what is there
• We look back at history to go forward, and look down [at
ordinary environment] to go up
Las Vegas
Analysis: Learning From Las Vegas
• Analysis of signs, symbols and buildings in
relation to their size, distance and speed of
movement
• Use example of icon (painting, sculpture, or
inscription) in historic building to support the use
of sign and symbol on commercial building
Analysis
Analysis
Analysis
Analysis
View Inside a Car
Analysis
Implication: Learning From Las Vegas
• “Architecture depends (in its perception and
creation) on past experience and emotional
association”
• “These symbolic and representational elements
may often be contradictory to the form, structure
and program”
“Duck” and “Decorated Shed”
• The Duck: systems of space, structure and
program are submerged and distorted by an
overall symbolic form (the special building that is
a symbol)
• The Decorated Shed: systems of space and
structure follow program, and ornament is
applied independently of them (the conventional
shelter that applies symbol)
“The Duck”
“systems of space, structure and program are submerged
and distorted by an overall symbolic form”
“The Decorated Shed”
“systems of space and structure follow program, and ornament
is applied independently”
Example: Guild House and Crawford Manor
Comparison
Guild House
• Ugly and ordinary
• Architecture of meaning
• Symbolism
• Symbolic ornament
• Mixed media
• Decoration by attaching
ornaments
Crawford Manner
• Heroic and original
• Architecture of expression
• Abstraction
• Expressive ornament
• Pure architecture
• Unadmitted decoration by
articulation of integral
elements
Heroic and Original
• Contrast between program and image
• The program of Crawford Manor is ordinary but the
image is heroic and original
• Impoverished itself by rejecting denotative ornament
and the rich tradition of iconography in historical
architecture while expressing architectural elements
themselves
Ugly and Ordinary
• Ugly, ordinary and looks it
• The windows look familiar; they look like, as well
as are, windows
• When used slightly unconventionally, they
become unfamiliar (like Pop Art)
Guild House
Pop Art
Andy Warhol
Modern Architecture
• Expression has become a dry expressionism,
empty and boring—and in the end irresponsible.
• Reject explicit symbolism and ornament, distort
the whole building into one big ornament and
become a “duck”
Architecture as Symbolism
Examples of Architectural Design:
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates
Mother’s House (1964)
Fire Station No. 4 (1968)
Franklin Court
(1976)
Best Showroom (1978)
House in Delaware (1980)
Gordon Wu Hall (1983)
Seattle Art Museum (1991)
Penn Clinical Research (1991)
Sainsbury Wing,
National Gallery
(1991)
Comparison: Venturi and Moore
(both apply historic elements—the grey)
Venturi
• Emphasize message
• Symbol in the environment
• View from outside
• Ambiguity
• More superficial
• Use historic elements
unconventionally
Moore
• Emphasize body sense
• Body experience extended
• View (feel) from within
• Dramatic
• More philosophical
• Use unconventional
elements to achieve
historic memory
Architecture as…
Venturi: Symbol
Moore: Experience
Further Information
• Venturi, Scott-Brown and Associates
website http://www.vsba.com
• Lots of information and pictures
• Cool website