Complexity and contradiction in architecture free download

Seen perpendicularly from the axis of the Champs Elyskes, it is spatially and symbolically both a termination and a portal. Later I shall analyze some organ- ized contradictions between front and back. But here I shall mention the Karlskirche in Vienna 42 , whose exterior contains elements both of the basilica in its fasade and of the central-type church in its body. A convex form in the back was required by the interior program; the urban space required a larger scale and a straight fagade in front.

The disunity that exists from the point of view of the building itself is contradicted when the building is seen in relation to the scale and the space of the neighborhood. The double meanings inherent in the phenomenon both-and can involve metamorphosis as well as contradic- tion. I have described how the omni-directional spire of the tower of Christ Church, Spitalfields, evolves into a direc- tional pavilion at its base, but a perceptual rather than a formal kind of change in meaning is possible.

In equivocal relationships one contradictory meaning usually dominates another, but in complex compositions the relationship is not always constant. This is especially true as the observer moves through or around a building, and by extension through a city: at one moment one meaning can be per- ceived as dominant; at another moment a different meaning seems paramount.

In St. George, Bloomsbury 30 , for instance, the contradictory axes inside become alternatingly dominant or recessive as the observer moves within them, SO that the same space changes meaning. Here is another dimension of "space, time and architecture" which involves the multiple focus. Christ Church. Cloth Hall and Belfry, Bruges Fischer von Erlach. Contradictory Levels Continued: The Double-Functioning Element The "double-functioningm27 element and "both-and" Le Corbusier's Algerian project, which is an apartment house are related, but there is a distinction: the double-function- and a highway, and Wright's late projects for Pittsburgh ing element pertains more to the particulars of use and Point and Baghdad, correspond to Kahn's viaduct architec- structure, while both-and refers more to the relation of the ture and Fumihiko Maki's "collective form.

Both-and emphasizes double meanings have complex and contradictory hierarchies of scale and over double-functions. But before I talk about the double- movement, structure, and space within a whole. These functioning element, 1 want to mention the multifunction- buildings are buildings and bridges at once.

At a larger ing building. By this term I mean the buil4ing which is scale: a dam is also a bridge, the loop in Chicago is a complex in program and form, yet strong as a whole-the boundary as well as a circulation system, and Kahn's street complex unity of Le Corbusier's La Tourette or the Palace "wants to be a building.

A room can have ArmCe du Salut in Paris. The latter approach separates many functions at the same time or at different times. Kahn functions into interlocking wings or connected pavilions. It prefers the gallery because it is directional and nondirec- has been typical of orthodox Modern architecture. The tional, a corridor and room at once. And he recognizes the incisive separations of the pavilions in Mies' design for the changing complexities of specific functions by differentiat- urban Illinois Institute of Technology can be understood as ing rooms in a general way through a hierarchy of size and an extreme development of it.

As in his project for the Trenton back , and by using a similar wall pattern camouflages Community Center, these spaces end by paralleling in a the fact that at the top there is a different kind of space more complex way the pre-eighteenth century configura- for mechanical equipment.

The idea of corridors and rooms World Trade center New York even more exaggeratedly each with a single function for convenience originated in simplifies the form of an enormous complex. The typical the eighteenth century.

Is not Modern architecture's charac- office skyscrapers of the '20's differentiate, rather than cam- teristic separation and specialization of program functions ouflage, their mechanical equipment space at the top within the building through built-in furniture an extreme through architecturally ornamental forms.

While Lever manifestation of this idea? Kahn by implication questions House includes differently-functioning spaces at the bot- such rigid specialization and limited functionalism. In this tom, it exaggeratedly separates them by a spatial shadow context, "form evokes function. In contrast, one exceptional Modern building, the The multifunctioning room is a possibly truer answer P.

The room complexity of its program. It integrates a shop on the first with a generic rather than a specific purpose, and with floor and a big bank on the second with offices above and movable furniture rather than movable partitions, promotes special rooms at the top. These varieties of functions and a perceptual flexibility rather than a physical flexibility, and scales including the enormous advertising sign at the top permits the toughness and permanence still necessary in our work within a compact whole.

Valid ambiguity promotes useful flexibility. Instead, Modern architec- function. At the lower pedestrian level it directs space ture has encouraged separation and specialization at all around the corner. Each contains within the whole - divergence for different materials. Wright's - from his master contrasting scales of movement besides complex functions. T o Wright, "appropriate designs for one material would not be appro- priate for another material. Saarinen overcame the current ob- session against using different materials in the same plane or the same material for two different things.

In Robert Rauschenberg's painting, Pilgrim 4 3 , the surface pattern continues from the stretcher canvas to the actual chair in front of it, making ambiguous the distinction between the painting and the furniture, and on another level, the work of art in a room.

A contradiction between levels of func- tion and meaning is recognized in these works, and the medium is strained. But to the structural purist, as well as the organicist, the double-functioning structural form would be abhor- rent because of the nonexact, ambiguous correspondence between form and function, and form and structure.

In contrast, in the Katsura Villa 4 4 the bamboo rod in tension and the wood post in compression are similar in form. To the Modern architect, I think, the two would seem sinisterly similar in section and size despite the current inclination toward traditional Japanese design.

The Renais- sance pilaster as well as other structural elements used in a nonstructural way can involve the phenomenon both- and at several levels. It can be at the same time physically structural or not, symbolically structural through associa- tion, and compositionally ornamental by promoting rhythm and also complexity of scale in the giant order. Modern architecture is never implicit. In promoting the frame and the curtain wall, it has separated structure from shelter. Even the walls of the Johnson Wax Building are enclosing but not supporting.

And in detailing, Modern architecture has tended to glory in separation. Even the flush joint is articulated, and the shadow joint predomi- nates. The versatile element which does several things at once is equally rare in Modern architecture. Significantly the column is favored over the pier. Maria in Cosme- din's nave 4 5 the column form results from its domi- nant, precise function as a point support. But the alternating piers in the same nave are intrinsically double-functioning.

They enclose and direct space as much as they support structure. The Baroque piers in the chapel at FrPsnes 46 , residual as form and redundant as struc- ture, are extreme examples of double-functioning elements which are structural and spatial at once. Le Corbusier's and Kahn's double-functioning ele- ments may be rare in our architecture. Are they wall segments, piers, or columns? Kahn's clusters of columns and his open piers "harbor" space for equipment, and can manipu- late natural light as well, like the rhythmically complex columns and pilasters of Baroque architecture.

Like the open beams in the Richards Medical Center 47 , these elements are neither structurally pure nor elegantly mini- mum in section. Instead, they are structural fragments in- separable from a greater spatial whole. It is valid to sense stresses in forms which are not purely structural, and a structural member can be more than incidentally spatial. However, the columns and the stair towers in this build- ing are separated and articulated in an orthodox manner.

Flat plate construction consists of concrete slabs of constant depth and varied reinforcement, with irregularly placed columns without beams or caps. To maintain a constant depth, the number of reinforcing bars changes to accommodate the more concentrated structural loads in the constant, beamless section. This permits, in apartment 46 Mansart Chapel. Flat plates are structurally impure: their section is not minimum. The demands of structural forces are compromised because of the demands of architectural space.

Form follows function here in a contradictory way; substance follows structural function; profile follows spatial function. In some Mannerist and Baroaue masonrv construction I J the pier, pilaster, and relieving arch about evenly make up a facade, and the resultant structure, like that of the Palazzo Valrnarana 48 , is bearing wall and frame at once.

The relieving arches in the Pantheon 49 , in this case not originaliy part of the visual expression, similarly generate a wall structurally double-functioning. Palazzo Valrnarana. Church of the Sagrada Farnilia, Barcelona. Section I I Redentore. Venice Perspective In contrast to the segregated flying buttress, the Roman countervault spans as well as but- tresses, and Gaudi's subtle invention of the tilted pier- buttress supports the weight of the vault as well as buttresses the thrust in one continuous form.

Palladio's but- tresses are also broken pediments on the fagade. A flying buttress at S. Chiara in Assisi forms a portal for the piazza as well as a support for the building. The double-functioning element can be a detail. Man- nerist and Baroque buildings abound in drip mouldings which become sills, windows which become niches, cornice ornaments which accommodate windows, quoin strips which are also pilasters, and architraves which make arches The pilasters of Michelangelo's niches in the en- trance of the Laurentian Library 54 also look like brack- ets.

Borromini's mouldings in the rear facades of the Propa- ganda Fide 55 are both window frames and pediments. Lutyens' chimneys at Grey Walls 56 are literally sculp- tural entrance markers as well, a dado at Gledstone Hall 57 is an extension of a stair riser in the same room, and the stair landing at Nashdom is also a room.

The balloon frame, which has been traced by Siegfried Giedion, becomes on all levels. Structurally and visually it evolves from a separate frame to a skin which is both structural and sheltering: to the extent that it is made up of 2 x 4's, it is frame; to the extent that the 2 x 4's are small, close together, and braced and meshed by diagonal siding, it becomes skin.

These intricate characteristics are evident in the way penetrations are made in it and in the way it is terminated. The balloon frame is another element in archi- tecture which is several things at once.

It represents a method between two pure extremes, which has evolved Conventional elements in architecture represent one stage in an evolutionary development, and they contain in their changed use and expression some of their past meaning as well as their new meaning. What can be called a the vestigial element parallels the double-functioning ele- ment. It is distinct from a superfluous element because it contains a double meaning.

This is the result of a more or less ambiguous combination of the old meaning, called up by associations, with a new meaning created by the modi- fied or new function, structural or programmatic, and the new context. The vestigial element discourages clarity of meaning; it promotes richness of meaning instead. Project for a Gateway. Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire basis for change and growth in the city as manifest in enriches meaning by underscoring.

In the project for a remodeling which involves old buildings with new uses gateway at Bourneville by Ledoux 58 , the columns in the both programmatic and symbolic like palazzi which be- arch are structurally rhetorical if not redundant.

Expres- come museums or embassies , and old street patterns with sively, however, they underscore the abstractness of the new uses and scales of movement.

The paths of medieval opening as a semicircle more than an arch, and they further fortification walls in European cities became boulevards in define the opening as a gateway. As I have said, the stair- the nineteenth century; a section of Broadway is a piazza way at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by and a symbol rather than an artery to upper New York Furness is too big in its immediate context, but appropriate state. The ghost of Dock Street in Philadelphia's Society as a gesture towards the outside scale and a sense of entry.

Hill, however, is a meaningless vestige rather than a work- The Classical portico is a rhetorical entrance. The stairs, ing element resulting from a valid transition between the columns, and pediment a e juxtaposed upon the other-scale, old and the new. I shall later refer to the vestigial element real entrance behind. Paul Rudolph's entrance in the Art as it appears in Michelangelo's architecture and in what and Architecture Building at Yale is at the scale of the city; might be called Pop architecture.

The rhetorical element, like the double-functioning Much of the function of ornament is rhetorical-like element, is infrequent in recent architecture. If the latter the use of Baroque pilasters for rhythm, and Vanbrugh's offends through its inherent ambiguity, rhetoric offends disengaged pilasters at the entrance to the kitchen court at orthodox Modern architecture's cult of the minimum. But Blenheim 59 which are an architectural fanfare.

The the rhetorical element is justified as a valid if outmoded rhetorical element which is also structural is rare in Modern means of expression. An element can seem rhetorical from architecture, although Mies has used the rhetorical I-beam one point of view, but if it is valid, at another level it with an assurance that would make Bernini envious. When I - circumstances defy order, order should bend or break: anomalies and uncertainties give validity to architecture.

A valid order accommodates the circumstantial contra- Meaning can be enhanced by breaking the order; the dictions of a complex reality. It accommodates as well as exception points up the rule. A building with no "imper- imposes. It thereby admits "control afid spontaneity," "cor- fect" part can have no perfect part, because contrast sup- rectness and easew-improvisation within the whole. It tol- ports meaning. An artful discord gives vitality to architec- erates qualifications and compromise. There are no fixed ture.

You can allow for contingencies all over, but they laws in architecture, but not everything will work in a cannot prevail all over. If order without expediency breeds building or a city. The architect must decide, and these formalism, expediency without order, of course, means subtle evaluations are among his principal functions. He chaos. Order must exist before it can be broken. No artist must determine what must be made to work and what it is can belittle the role of order as a way of seeing a whole possible to compromise with, what will give in, and where relevant to its own characteristics and context.

He does not ignore or exclude inconsistencies of no work of art without a system" is Le Corbusier's dictum. Indeed a propensity to break the order can justify I have emphasized that aspect of complexity and con- exaggerating it.

A valid formalism, or a kind of paper Palazzo Tarugi. Montepulciano tradiction which grows out of the medium more than the architecture in this context, compensates for distortions, program of the building.

Now I shall emphasize the com- expediencies, and exceptions in the circumstantial parts of plexity and contradiction that develops from the program the composition, or for violent superimpositions in juxta- and reflects the inherent complexities and contradictions of posed contradictions. In recent architecture Le Corbusier in living. It is obvious that in actual practice the two must be the Villa Savoye, for example, accommodates the excep- interrelated.

Contradictions can represent the exceptional tional circumstantial inconsistencies in an otherwise rigid, inconsistency that modifies the otherwise consistent order, dominant order. But Aalto, in contrast to Le Corbusier, or they can represent inconsistencies throughout the order seems almost to create the order out of the inconsistencies, as a whole.

In the first case, the relationship between as can be seen in the Cultural Center at Wolfsburg. An inconsistency and order accommodates circumstantial ex- historical example will perhaps help to illustrate this rela- ceptions to the order, or it juxtaposes particular with gen- tion of order and exception.

The applique of arches and eral elements of order. Here you build an order up and then pilasters on the Palazzo Tarugi 60 maintains itself break it down, but break it from strength rather than from against the sudden impositions of "whimsical" windows weakness. I have described this relationship as "contradic- and asymmetrical voids. The exaggerated order, and there- tion accommodated.

The cir- Mies refers to a need to "create order out of the cumstantial oppositions in their compositions, however, are desperate confusion of our time. Although Aalto's order is not bemoaning confusion? Should we not look for meaning in quite so easily grasped at first glance, it involves similar the complexities and contradictions of our times and ac- relationships of order and the circumstantial. These, I think, are In engineering it is the bridge 61 that vividly ex- the two justifications for breaking order: the recognition of presses the play of exaggeratedly pure order against cir- variety and confusion inside and outside, in program and cumstantial inconsistencies.

The direct, geometric order of environment, indeed, at all levels of experience; and the the upper structure, derived from the sole, simple function of conveying vehicles on an even span, strongly contrasts David Jones, Efioch and Artist, Chilmark Press, New York, with the exceptional accommodation of the structural order I aql lnq 'l!

A pal! Buoas aq anur rapro 1eu! M Kay1 JO. M u Xaql mq 'may1 qs! M pale! M pal3aUUOs asnpord pau8! Are we today proclaiming ad- Kohler, which even Wright was unable to avoid using, read vanced technology, while excluding the immediate, vital if as unfortunate compromises within the particular order of vulgar elements which are common to our architecture and his buildings, which is otherwise consistent. The architect should accept the methods and Gropius in his early work, however, employed forms the elements he already has.

He often fails when he and elements based on a consistent industrial vocabulary. Technical inno- chine aesthetic. The inspiration for windows and stairways, vations require investments in time and skills and money for instance, came from current factory architecture, and beyond the architect's reach, at least in our kind of society.

Latter-day Mies employs The trouble with nineteenth century architects was not so the structural elements of vernacular American industrial much that they left innovation to the engineers as that they architecture and also those of Albert Kahn with uncon- ignored the technical revolution developed by others.

Pres- scious irony: the elegant frame members are derived from ent-day architects, in their visionary compulsion to invent standard steel manufacturers' catalogues; they are expressed new techniques, have neglected their obligation to be ex- as exposed structure but they are ornament on a fire-resist- perts in existing conventions. The architect, of course, is ant frame; and they make up complex, closed spaces rather responsible for the how as well as the what in his building, than the simple industrial spaces they were originally de- but his innovating role is primarily in the what; his experi- signed for.

The architect selects as much commonplace elements, such as the Thonet chair, the offi- as creates. The nineteenth century statue of the Virgin The architect's main work is the organization of a unique within the window of the east wall of the Chapel at whole through conventional parts and the judicious intro- Ronchamp is a vestige from the former church which stood duction of new parts when the old won't do.

Gestalt psy- on the spot. Besides its symbolic value, it represents a banal chology maintains that context contributes meaning to a object of sculpture vividly enhanced by its new setting. The Bernard Maybeck is the unique architect in recent times to architect thereby, through the organization of parts, creates employ contradictory combinations of vernacular industrial meaningful contexts for them within the whole.

Through elements and eclectic stylistic elements for example, in- unconventional organization of conventional parts he is dustrial sash and Gothic tracery in the same building. If he uses Using convention unconventionally is otherwise almost un- convention unconventiobally, if he organizes familiar things known in our recent architecture.

Familiar things alteration of language, words perpetually juxtaposed in new seen in an unfamiliar context become perceptually new as and sudden combinations. If they have not totally rejected should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. But they have seldom used the gruity. The Pop way. Wright, for instance, almost always employed unique painter gives uncommon meaning to common elements by elements and unique forms, which represented his personal 'changing their context or increasing their scale.

Through and innovating approach to architecture. Architects and planners who pee- meanings which are ambiguously both old and new, banal vishly denounce the conventional townscape for its vulgar- and vivid. But they largely fail either to enhance or to architecture, the so-called Spolium architecture in which provide a substitute for the existing scene because they column capitals are used as bases, for instance, to the attempt the impossible.

By attempting too much they flaunt Renaissance style itself, where the old Classical Roman their impotence and risk their continuing influence as sup- vocabulary was employed in new combinations. And James posed experts. Cannot the architect and planner, by slight Ackerman has described Michelangelo as "rarely adopting a adjustments to the conventional elements of the townscape, motif [in his architecture] without giving it a new form or existing or proposed, promote significant effects?

By modi- a new meaning. Yet he invariably retained essential fea- fying or adding conventional elements to still other conven- tures from ancient models in order to force the observer to tional elements they can, by a twist of context, gain a recollect the source while enjoying the innovations. They can Ironic convention is relevant both for the individual make us see the same things in a different way.

It recognizes the real condition Finally, standardization, like convention, can be another of our architecture and its status in our culture. Industry manifestation of the strong order. But unlike convention it promotes expensive industrial and electronic research but has been accepted in Modern architecture as an enriching not architectural experiments, and the Federal government product of our technology, yet dreaded for its potential diverts subsidies toward air transportation, communication, domination and brutality.

But is it not standardization that and the vast enterprises of war or, as they call it, national is without circumstantial accommodation and without a security, rather than toward the forces for the direct en- creative use of context that is to be feared more than hancement of life.

The practicing architect must admit this. The ideas of order and circumstance, In simple terms, the budgets, techniques, and programs for convention and context--of employing standardization in his buildings must relate more to than Archi- an unstandard way-apply to our continuing problem of tects should accept their modest role rather than disguise it standardization versus variety. Giedion has written of and risk what might be called an electronic expressionism, Aalto's unique "combination of standardization with irra- which might parallel the industrial expressionism of early tionality so that standardization is no longer master but Modern architecture.

The architect who would accept his servant. I have alluded to the reasons why honky-tonk elements in our architecture and townscape are here to stay, espe- cially in the important short-term view, and why such a fate should be acceptable. Pop Art has demonstrated that these commonplace elements are often the main source of the occasional variety and vitality of our cities, and that it is not their banality or vulgarity as elements which make for the banality or vulgarity of the whole scene, but rather their contextual relationships of space and scale.

Contradiction Adapted The fagades of two eighteenth century Neapolitan villas express two kinds, or two manifestations, of contra- diction. In the Villa Pignatelli 62 the mouldings, which dip, become string courses and window heads at once. In the Villa Palomba 6 3 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 Villa Pignatelli, S.

Giorgio a Cremano. Elevation and pilaster rhythm: the inside order and the outside order are in an uncompromisingly contradictory relation. In the first facade contradiction is adapted by accom- modating and compromising its elements- in the second fagade contradiction is juxtaposed by using contrasting su- perimposed or adjacent elements. Contradiction adapted is tolerant and pliable. It admits improvisation. It involves the disintegration of a prototypeand it ends in approxima- Villa Palomba.

Torre del Greco. 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 jwta- posed ends in a whole which is perhaps unresolved.

These types of contradiction occur in the work of Le Corbusier. Contrasts in the plans of the Villa Savoye 5 and the Assembly Building in Chandigarh 6 4 correspond to those in the elevations of the Villa Pignatelli and the Villa Palomba.

In the Villa Savoye the positions of some of the columns in the rectangular bay system adjust slightly to accommodate to articular spatial I 1 needs--one column is moved and another removed. In the Assembly Building" although the grid of columns also adjusts to the exceptional plastic form of the assembly hall, in the juxtaposition of the hall itself and the grid, they do not adapt-the juxtaposi- tion is violent and uncompromising not only in plan but also in sections, where it appears to have been thrust violently into the grid Le Corbusier.

Assembly Building. Plan Kahn has said: "It is the role of design to adjust to the circumstantial. The resultant tensions give a vitality to the buildings not appar- ent in their ideal counterparts illustrated in the Qaattro Libri. House, Domegge nineteenth century. In the typical gambrel roof the need to accommodate living space within a roof angle essentially determined by drainage and structural functions results in an eloquent distortion of the original gable.

These ex- amples are distinguishable from the expressionistic distor- tions of Rococo or of German Expressionism where the distorted is not contrasted with the undistorted.

Besides circumstantial distortion, there are other tech- niques of adaptation. The expedient device is an element in all anonymous architecture that is dependent on a strong conventional order.

It is used to adjust the order to circum- stances which are contradictory to it: such circumstances are often topographical. The bracket on the house at Do- megge 67 is a device that expedites the tense transition from symmetrical faqade to symmetrical gable and at the same time accommodates the asymmetrical overhang on the right side.

A vivid play of order and the circumstantial is, in fact, a characteristic of all Italian architecture, with its bold contradictions of monumentality and expediency. The ornamented post in the center of the inner portal at Vkzelay 68 , which is a shore for the lunette, interrupts the axis to the altar.

It is an expedient device made eventful. Kahn's uniquely deep beams over the great span of the gymnasium in the project for the Trenton Community Center are exceptional devices to maintain the consistency of the domes of the roof. They are made manifest in plan by the filled-in-columns that support them Lutyens' work abounds in devices: the split at the side of the house called The Salutation in Sandwich 70 ,is an expedient device which is spatial.

By introducing natural illumination at the Ste Madeleine, Vezelay Mount Vernon. Fairfax County. In some of Jasper complexities of its domestic program. The very subtly dis- Johns' painting the device is similarly made explicit by torted relationships of the windows in H. Richardson's arrows and notation. He breaks the they maintained the regularity and symmetry demanded by order of the bays in the ground floor of the Villa Savoye the public function of a monumental building on Lafayette 5 by moving one column and removing another, as I Square.

Here the subtle compromise between order and have shown, to accommodate exceptional circumstances in- circumstance, outside and inside, and private and public volving space and circulation. In this eloquent compromise functions, produced ambiguous rhythms and vibrant ten- Le Corbusier makes the dominant regularity of the compo- sions in the fagade. The varied openings in the Palaao Tarugi 6 0 , The exceptional location of windows, like the eventful exceptional in form and position, break the dominant pi- exception in columns, usually produces an altered sym- laster order of the outside in typical Italian fashion.

Lewis metry. For example, the windows at Mount Vernon 71 Mumford, in a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania do not follow an exact symmetrical pattern. Instead, the in , compared the exceptional window positions in window pattern is the result of earlier renovations, and it the south fagade of the Doges' Palace with Eero Saarinen's breaks the dominant order of the central pediment and windowed fasade of the American Embassy in London. The symmetrical wings. Adams House. The chapel wing at Versailles is an eventful exception beyond the scale of columns or windows.

Through its posi- tion, form, and height it contributes a vitality and validity to the dominant symmetrical order of the whole, a vitality conspicuously lacking at Caserta, for example, where the exterior order of the enormous and complex palace is en- tirely consistent.

In Modern architecture we have operated too long under the restrictions of unbending rectangular forms sup- posed to have grown out of the technical requirements of the frame and the mass-produced curtain wall. In contrast- ing Mies' and Johnson's Seagram Building 74 with Kahn's project for an office tower in Philadelphia 75 it can be seen that Mies and Johnson reject all contradictions of diagonal wind-bracing in favor of an expression of a rectilinear frame.

Kahn once said that the Seagram Build- ing was like a beautiful lady with hidden corsets. Kahn, in contrast, expresses the wind-bracing-but at the expense of such vertical elements as the elevator and, indeed of the spaces for people. In many works of Le Corbusier and Aalto, however, a balance, or perhaps a tension, is achieved between the rectilinearity of standard techniques, and the diagonal which expresses exceptional conditions.

In his apartments at Bremen 76 , Aalto has taken the rectangular order of Le Corbusier's basic dwelling unit, which makes up his high-rise " apartment slabs Mles van der Rohe and Johnson. New York Model for light and for the view. The north-facing stairs and circulation areas remain strictly rectilinear in plan. Even in the most extreme units an essential rectilinearity and regu- larity of space is maintained.

And in Aalto's Wolfsburg Cultural Center 78 the rectangular configuration of the whole composition is barely maintained as he organizes the necessarily diagonal shapes of the auditoriums. This is different from Kahn's Goldenberg House pro- ject 79 where the exceptional diagonal is in part an ele- ment of the structural pattern and partially spatial, to make a series of spaces that go around the corners of the building continuously, rather than one side overlapping the other.

Mies allows nothing to get in the way of the consist- ency of his order, of the point, line, and plane of his always complete pavilions. If Wright camouflages his circumstan- tial exceptions, Mies excludes them: less is more.

Apartment Building. Apartment Bullding. In the Villa Savoye, again, again. Plan for the City of Berlin. In the early 'bus, howev. In the Villa Savo. This one, but the Pritzker Prize jury declined to do so, residual as form and redundant as struc- ture, the first. The Baroque piers in the chapel at FrPsnes 4. The pavilions which flanked the chlteau at Marly 2 3 contained a similar paradox. This attitude contrasts greatly with that of Wright, one exceptional Modern building. In contrast, the offi- as creates.

The architect selects as much commonplace elemen. The latter have often misapplied or exaggerated the ideas and methods of this book to the' point of parody. Your email address will not be published. June 25, — September 18, was an American architect , founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates , and one of the major architectural figures of the twentieth century. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown , he helped shape the way that architects, planners and students experience and think about architecture and the American-built environment.

Their buildings, planning, theoretical writings, and teaching have also contributed to the expansion of discourse about architecture. Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in ; the prize was awarded to him alone, despite a request to include his equal partner, Brown. File Name: complexity and contradiction in architecture pdf free download. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The revival of the column was an aestheticTurin. To learn more, view our Privacy Policy.

To browse Academia. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Milad Tangshir. A short summary of this paper.

Robert Venturi in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture addresses architecture as the only place where redundant and simple construction, in thinking and in material reality, takes shape. All other art forms indulge and promote complexity in their art form. Venturi finds great value in embracing the complex layers that have emerged from previous and old methods of architecture that have rendered architecture complex.

Ventrui focuses on embracing contradiction and complexity by recognizing the various paradoxes present in architecture and the society that architecture accommodates. A visually complex, constructed, environment is necessary and can exist between regimented order and barren architectural forms. Venturi recognizes the work of Mies van der Rohe in his statuesque pavilions that are recognizable by their simplicity.

The complex architecture, Venturi says, has multiple meaning, which at the same time takes part in a fluid system. The meanings contradict one another when analyzed side by side but Venturi suggests that they should be addressed together, not excluding one or the other for the sake of clarity in simplification.