Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture summarises highly unconventional thoughts on architecture of an American architect and theorist Robert Venturi (1925). He suggests that architects gradually lose respect as a result of insufficient development of their discipline and instead of raising the effectiveness of architecture through convincing architectonic solutions, they focus on disciplines such as sociology, aesthetics or philosophy. Venturi considers this to be the legacy of functionalism, which he strongly rejects. The contradiction between different requirements manifest itself in the relationship of a new construction to an urbanistic complex – what matches the construction may not match the complex solution with regard to the environmental context, since designing inside out as well as outside in creates necessary tension which helps to make architecture. And this is the tension, complexity and contradiction Venturi enjoys. He takes advantage of these challenges and dramatizes them to the extend that they become visible in the construction. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture is the first and fundamental formulation of principles of postmodern architectural thought.