Robert Venturi S Complexity and Contradi

The University of Edinburgh
Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and the

Vanna Venturi House (1964): concept of history reassessed
Author: Supervisor:
Kristina Rimkute Professor

Iain Boyd Whyte
24/04/2013
Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………..………3
Part 1: Historical Examples in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture……..…7
Part 2: History’s role in the criticism of Modernism………………………………….16
Part 3: History, Complexity, and Complex Historical Context…………..…………..24
Part 4: History in the Vanna Venturi House…………..………………………………36
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….48
Images…………………………………………………………………………………51
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..61
2
Introduction
‘History presents a curious instrument: its knowledge seems indispensible, yet once
attained, it is not directly usable; it is a sort of corridor the full length of which one
must traverse in order to get out, but which teaches us nothing about the art of
walking.’
From Vittorio Gregotti,
Le territoire de l’architecture (1966), p. 871
By referring to the architect as a type of Homo Universalis, it was Vitruvius who first
laid the foundations for our perception of the architectural profession as being highly
complex.2 Indeed, it was through this very description that complexity was established
as an ultimate and self-evident precondition in the spheres of both building designs and
urban planning.3 This theme was carried into the twentieth century by American
architect and theorist Robert Venturi (1925 - ); he pursued this ideal partly in an
attempt to restore the perception of architecture as complex, but also as something of a
justification of his own ideas published in the aptly titled Complexity and
Contradiction in Architecture (1966). In order to make his case, Venturi included in
the book a remarkably rich and geographically broad spectrum of images of high and
1
Translation from A. Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London,
2000), p. 201.
2
A. Gleiniger, G. Vrachliotis, 'The Complexity of Complexity' in Complexity: Design Strategy and
World View (London, 2008), p. 8.
3
Ibid., p. 8.
3
vernacular architecture, past and present, and contemporary visual culture. An eclectic
collection of ‘complex’ historical architecture certainly reaffirmed the premise that the
designing of buildings is a practice of ‘accommodation’ rather than the simplistic
‘deduction’ of inherent complexities – a fact that was frequently ignored by the
Modernist architects.4
Vincent Scully (1920- ), a professor of Architectural History at Yale University,
described in the ‘Introduction’ to Complexity and Contradiction (hereafter CCA) that
Venturi’s book was ‘probably the most important writing on the making of architecture
since Le Corbusier’s Vers une Architecture, of 1923.’5 This declaration sounded like
an exaggeration in 1966; retrospectively, however, one must give some credence to
Scully’s bold statement. In the decades that followed its initial release, CCA went
through nine reprints, was published in eighteen languages,6 and Carter Wiseman –
one of the most respected contemporary American architectural critics – declared, in
1998, that CCA is the second of MoMA’s ‘most important publishing contributions to
the history of American architecture of in twentieth century.’7 It was clear by this stage
that the personal tone of Venturi’s writing appealed to the younger generation of
architects who were increasingly conscious of the limitations of orthodox Modernist
4
V. Scully, ‘Introduction’ to R. Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York,
1977), p. 11.
5
Ibid., p. 9.
6
J. Ockman, ‘1965-1966’, Architecture Culture: 1943-1968 (New York, 1993), p. 389.
7
The first publication of significant importance, according to Wiseman, is Henry-Russell Hitchcock and
Philip Johnson’s The International Style (1932) which launched Modernism in America. See C.
Wiseman, ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’, Shaping a Nation: Twentieth-century American Architecture
and its Makers (New York, 1998), p. 246.
4
architecture,8 and were aware of the ‘fairy stories’ that the Modernists painted over a
complex and chaotic reality.9
The influence of CCA went beyond the rejection of the simplifying approach to
design. Venturi’s criticism of the Modernist principle that the past is both obsolete and
irrelevant10 also fuelled a revival of eclectic mannerist tendencies in architecture, and
initiated a shift to neo-historicising Postmodernism in America.11 By the mid 1970s,
references to various historical and vernacular styles started to become relevant again,
and architects were keen to show that their buildings had some kind of ‘history.’12
Such legendary structures as Michael Graves’ Portland Building in Oregon (1982),
Charles Moore’s Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans (1979), and Philip Johnson’s AT&T
Building in New York City (1984) are just few of the many examples of this type of
revival in America.
Despite the general consensus that CCA is one of the seminal works responsible for
unleashing implicit neo-historicism into the twentieth century, there has been
disappointingly little interpretative work done on elucidating what Venturi actually
8
A number of papers that criticise Modernist architecture appeared much before the publication of CCA.
Some of them are: J. Hudnut’s 'The Postmodern House', Architectural Record, Vol. 97 (May 1945), pp.
70-5; P. Johnson’s 'The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture' Perspecta, Vol. 3 (1955), pp. 40-44; L.
Mumford’s ‘The Case Against 'Modern Architecture’, Architectural Record Vol. 131 (April 1962), pp.
159–620; J. Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York, 1961). Also, the late
1950s were marked by the dissolution of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM).
9
Quotation from K. Tange, Documents of Modern Architecture (New York, 1961), p.170 cited in
Venturi, CCA, p. 14. Also see Gleiniger and Vrachliotis, 'The Complexity of Complexity', p. 43.
10
M. F. Hearn, ‘Implications of Robert Venturi’s Theory of Architecture’, Architecture and Civil
Engineering, Vol. 2, No 5 (2003), p. 359.
11
In Europe the revival of historicism and shift to Postmodernism is often associated with Aldo Rossi’s
The Architecture of the City (1966). See: J. Ockman, ‘1965-1966’, pp. 389-98.
12
Forty, Words and Buildings, p. 203.
5
meant by his use of the terms ‘history’ and ‘historical context.’ The principal purpose
of this paper is to address this issue. My study is going to be defined by a critical
assessment of CCA and the Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, PA (1962-64) – the
residence of Venturi’s mother that was discussed in CCA as a prime example of the
implementation of Venturi’s theory in practice. By analysing Venturi’s treatment of
historical buildings in CCA (Part 1), it will be shown that he is primarily concerned
with visual effects and, in order to find them, he manipulates historical examples by
removing them from their context. In Part 2 it will be argued that Venturi analyses
historical architecture simply as pretext to validate his criticism of Modernist design
methods. Moreover, he is greatly concerned with architectural symbolism and
historical references which, he believes, communicate some sort of collective memory.
Part 3 will show that Venturi’s principal goal is to achieve ‘a richer and closer to
reality architecture’.13 Historical references play only a secondary role in CCA, but
they help to enrich meaning in architecture and mediate the cultural complexity of the
time. The discussion of the treatment of historicism in the Vanna Venturi House
(hereafter the VVH) is reserved for Part 4. The conclusion drawn from this dissertation
will suggest that Venturi’s attitude towards history is obscure and even contradictory.
He promotes a simplistic approach to history, and, as a consequence, an artificial
complexity in the VVH. This approach, however, is rooted in contemporary scientific
and literary theory, and reflects the significant influence of Pop Art.
13
Tzonis et al., ‘Venturi and Scott Brown: Vanna Venturi House’ in Architecture in North America
since 1960 (London, 1995), p. 89.
6
Part 1: Historical Examples in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
One of Venturi’s most fundamental assumptions is that every architectural structure is
the resultant equilibrium achieved through the complex interactions of the frequently
conflicting interests of the patron, the architect, the builders, and the local
environment. From this follows his now well-known declaration:
I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture… I welcome the

problems and exploit the uncertainties… I like elements which are hybrid
rather than ‘pure,’ compromising rather than ‘clean,’ distorted rather
than ‘straightforward,’ ambiguous rather than articulated… I am for
messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non sequitur and proclaim
the duality.14
The richness of this architecture also acknowledges such relationships as
‘circumstantial distortions’, ‘crowded intricacies’, ‘superadjacency’ and ‘inflection’, as
well as accommodating concepts of ‘both and’, ‘double functioning elements’ (or
‘vestigial elements’), and ‘redundant spaces.’ All of these ambiguous terms are
introduced by Venturi to describe more liberal and more profound kinds of architecture
characterised by multiple levels of meaning and their incorporation of compositional
tension.
From the architecture of Mannerism, and the Baroque and Rococco styles, Venturi
discovers an abundance of buildings that reflect the aforementioned qualities, and that
14
Venturi, CCA, p. 16.
7
therefore stand as testimony to his complexity thesis. Indeed, it is the tangible breadth
of these very examples that makes CCA so particularly persuasive. Since the book was
inspired by Venturi’s time in Italy, it is unsurprising that images of historical Italian
architecture dominate its pages15 and that so much attention is given to the works of
the Italian Mannerists masters Baldassare Peruzzi, Giacomo della Porta, Michelangelo,
and Andrea Palladio. The designs of High Baroque architects – such as Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, Francesco Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona – also receive a share of
Venturi’s interest. That said, however, CCA is not limited by references to exclusively
Italian sources, as Venturi sees contradictions in architecture from much wider
geographical regions. The publication consequently includes illustrations of historical
buildings from England (such as those designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, John
Vanbrugh, John Soane, Edwin Lutyens), France (Jules Hardouin-Mansart),
contemporary Germany (Balthasar Neumann, Dominikus Zimmermann), Austria
(Fischer von Erlach), and North America (Frank Furness, Thomas Jefferson) to name a
few. The eclectic compendium of the historical structures that he discusses are
collectively characterised by a playful attitude to previous styles.
What is immediately striking about Venturi’s book is the unusually casual manner in
which he selects the illustrations: his method is to scan broad geographical regions and
then juxtapose what might appear to be completely unrelated buildings. In terms of
15
In 1954 Venturi won a Rome Prize in architecture, and from 1954 to 1956 he studied in the American
Academy, Rome. In the interview of 1977 the architect confessed his fascination for Italian Mannerism:
‘But during my last months in Rome, I realized that Mannerist architecture was what really meant most
to me, and I re-examined a lot of Italian historical architecture for its Mannerist qualities. This was
important when I came to write Complexity and Contradiction in the following years.’ – P. Barriere, S.
Lavin, ‘Interview with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’, Perspecta, Vol. 28 (1997), p. 127.
8
their cultural and historical context, the surprisingly liberal stance that Venturi takes to
his arrangement of these buildings might perhaps have been a subtle argument in
support of his claim that complexities are a universal feature of architecture.
Nevertheless, this position gives little historiographical validity to CCA, as Venturi
manipulates the historical examples by brutally removing them from their cultural-
historical contexts. One of the many potential examples of this de-contextualisation is
his discussion of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome (1506-1626), and All Saints Church on
Margaret Street in London (1849-1859). For instance, although Venturi frequently
refers to the grand Catholic basilica with regards to its imposing design and
complicated history, the main focus of his interest in this building is its rear façade
(1546-1564): designed by Michelangelo, it is the ‘enormous rectangular openings in
the attic story’ that instantiate Venturi’s concept of ‘both and’, and a blank window
‘juxtaposed with a capital bigger than the window itself’ which exemplifies
‘contradictory contrast in scale’ (Fig.1).16 In terms of William Butterfield’s design for
All Saints – a High Victorian masterpiece associated with the church reform in Britain
and praised for its ecclesiologically coherent design – Venturi’s attention is focused
mainly on the clashing brick patterns found on the wings that flank the main entrance
(Fig.2).17 The relative independence of the brick pattern to the form of the wings is a
great example of Venturi’s favoured concept of ‘contradiction juxtaposed’.18 It is clear
from these two examples that Venturi pays little – if any – attention to the political and
religious agendas lying behind these historical structures. Instead, he is primarily
16
Venturi, CCA, pp. 25 and 66.
17
Ibid., p. 57.
18
Ibid., p. 57.
9
concerned with drawing attention to small details and recurrent minor visual effects. 19
The conviction that most great architectural structures stand not only as a testimony to
a particular political climate, but were also erected to express something that the
designer/builder believed in has, however, been key element of architectural studies
since the early writings about the Pyramids.20
Venturi’s focus on the purely visual qualities of historical buildings has been
highlighted by a number of intellectual who have studied CCA.21 For example, in his
article ‘Sign and Substance: Reflections on Complexity, Las Vegas and Oberlin’
(1978) the British architect and critic, Alan Colquhoun, argues that CCA is merely ‘a
plea for complexity in general’, and one that lacks consistent historical perspective.22
Colquhoun reaches this conclusion after first establishing that Venturi overlooks the
fact that there are numerous different types of complexity in architecture; for instance,
complexity can be intentionally created by the architect or conditioned by some of the
unique and specific forces of history.’23 In addition to this, Colquhoun notes that
Venturi does not make a distinction between ‘the effect of a building on the
perceptions of the [contemporary] observer and the effect [originally] intended by the
19
M. Delbeke, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture: Robert Venturi and Roman
Mannerism and Baroque’ in D. Benyon and U. de Jong (eds.) History in Practice: Proceedings of the
25th International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand
(Geelong, 2008). Accessed via Ghent University Academic Bibliography
(https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/428793).
20
Wiseman, ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’, p. 246.
21
R. Maxwell refers to CCA as merely ‘a survey of architectural effects, which Venturi himself has most
enjoyed’ - see ‘The Venturi effect’, D. Dunster (ed.) Architectural Monographs I: Venturi and Rauch
(London, 1978), p. 23; similarly, P. Harries defines the book as a survey of ‘visual effects which Venturi
treats as aesthetic constants’ - see P. Harries et al., ‘The Marketing of Meaning: aesthetics incorporated’,
Environment and Planning, Vol. 9 (1982), p. 458.
22
A. Colquhoun, ‘Sign and Substance: Reflections on Complexity, Las Vegas and Oberlin’ in Essays in
Architectural Ariticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change (London, 1985), p. 140.
23
Ibid., p. 140.
10
designer.’24 As a consequence of this apparent equivocation, Venturi’s text can be seen
to oscillate between these two positions as if they were synonymous. A further line of
criticism from Colquhoun maintains that while Venturi explicitly emphasises the
concept of ambiguity in most of the historical structures he discusses, the architect
ignores the fact that there is more than one type of ambiguity.25 For instance, in Seven
Types of Ambiguity (1930), William Empson talks about ambiguity as inherent in all
artworks, but there is also a stylistic ambiguity – i.e. Mannerism, which directly
depended on the prior existence of a set of stylistic rules. Venturi was well aware of
these two types as he cited Empson and praised stylistic playfulness in architecture.26
Despite this fact, Venturi still defiantly superimposes one type of ambiguity on top of
another.
Regardless of the validity of these points, one must be careful not to oversimplify
Venturi’s attitudes to history and complexity. Colquhoun, for instance, ignores the fact
that Venturi had an unusually good knowledge of architectural precedents. The
American architect graduated from Princeton University School of Architecture - a
place of rare significance due to the fact that it was one of only a few institutions in the
USA that integrated the teaching of architectural history into its curriculum.27 During
24
Ibid., p. 140.
25
Ibid., p. 139.
26
Venturi quotes from Empson’s book in CCA, p. 20 and again refers to him in p. 22.
27
Relatively few architects who were practicing around the 1920s-50s knew much about architectural
history. Harvard University – ‘a sanctuary’ of architectural training and ‘Mecca’ of Modernism in the
USA – had no interest in teaching history to the students of architecture at the time to the extent that this
subject was not even included in the curriculum of the Architecture School. Yale University offered was
the first to offer a course on architectural history but only in the mid-1960s. See S. Wrede, ‘Complexity
and Conduction Twenty-five Years Later: an Interview with Robert Venturi’ in American art of the
1960s (New York, 1991), pp .144-5.
11
his college years, one of the key influences upon the young Venturi were the lectures
of professor Jean Labatut (1899-1986). Labatut promoted a creative approach to
history by encouraging the study of great old architectural masterpieces regardless of
their style.28 Venturi was also fortunate enough to spend two years in Rome studying
historical structures. His liberal mentor in Rome – Richard Krautheimer (1897–1994) –
introduces Venturi to well-known architectural masterpieces as well as the then little
studied body of buildings, some of which appear in CCA.29 It was during the 1950s
that Venturi joined the teaching staff of Princeton University and himself offered what
was, as he recalls, ‘the only [architectural] theory course at that time in this country’.30
While bearing in mind Venturi’s academic background, one can reasonably speculate
that a ‘historically correct’ analysis of the structures discussed in CCA was not his
primary concern. This is even suggested by the architect himself in the ‘Preface’ to
CCA, where he writes that ‘The comparisons include some buildings which […] have
been lifted abstractly from their historical context because I rely less on the idea of
style than on the inherent characteristics of specific buildings’ – a declaration that
Colquhoun completely overlooks.31 Colquhoun also fails to notice the fact that
Venturi’s attitudes to history were rooted in the literary theory of the 1950s.
Maarten Delbeke – professor of Architectural History at Ghent University – dedicated
two papers to the analysis of literary sources that shaped Venturi’s approach to
28
29
Delbeke, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’ accessed via Ghent University
Academic Bibliography (https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/428793).
30
Wrede, ‘an Interview with Robert Venturi’, p. 144.
31
12
history.32 In the essay ‘Mannerism and meaning in Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture’ (2010), he carefully studies Venturi’s arguments in CCA and traces a
connection between Venturi and the formalist movement in literature known as ‘New
Criticism’ (which emerged in the late-1940s and became popular during the 1950s).
The influence of New Criticism is clearly evident in Venturi’s book through its
frequent citations of the people associated with the group.33 A good example of this is
the way in which the preface to CCA is composed around the references to one of the
key voices of the movement - Thomas S. Eliot (1888–1965). Delbeke argues that the
most fundamental idea adapted by Venturi from the critics is that ‘the meaning of a
work resides in its specific, particular form, independent of external or contextual
meanings.’34 A book entitled Four Stages in Renaissance Style (1955) by Wylie
Sypher (a member of the movement) seems like one of the most logical sources of
departure. First, it is in this publication that Sypher pays great attention to Mannerism,
and constructs comparisons between architecture and literature. Delbeke speculates
that this work must have helped Venturi to appreciate the validity of certain literary
critical tools for the analysis of architecture.35 Second, in this book Sypher adopts a
formalist stance by rejecting context as source of meaning in art. Delbeke notices that
Venturi similarly studies historical architecture from a formalistic stance, and that he,
too, is primarily interested in playing with conventional design codes.36 Third, by
32
See articles: Delbeke, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’
(https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/428793), and M. Delbeke, 'Mannerism and meaning in Complexity
and Contradiction in Architecture', The Journal of Architecture, Vol.15, No. 3 (2010), pp. 267-282.
33
For example Cleanth Brooks (1906–1994) is mentioned in pp. 20, 23; William Empson (1906–1984)
– pp. 20, 22; Thomas S. Eliot (1888–1965) – pp. 13, 16, 20, 43; Josef Albers (1888-1976) – pp. 16, 20.
34
Ibid., 275.
35
Delbeke, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’
36
Ibid, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’.
13
studying de-contextualised artworks, Sypher discovers ‘a fundamental parentage
between the different art forms.’37 To put this in other words, Sypher finds reoccurring
analogies in content from various different mediums – i.e. in Mannerist poetry and a
pieces of architecture of the same style.38 In a similar way to Sypher, Venturi distances
himself from a programmatic view of architecture, and the distinction between
medium in all types of art becomes of little significance to him.39 The result of this is
that Sypher’s book serves as a clue for us in helping to understand why Venturi thinks
it is right to juxtapose such unrelated structures as, for example, Vanbrugh’s elevation
for Eastbury Park House, Dorset (ca. 1718), and Jasper Johns’ painting Three Flags
(1958).40 Despite the fact that Venturi does not mention Sypher’s name even once in
CCA, the American architect’s indebtedness to Sypher is also reflected in the almost
word for word similarity of their definitions of a ‘double functioning element’;
although Sypher refers to the concept as ‘double functioning of members’, both men
see the design effect in the ‘mouldings which becomes stills, windows which become
niches […] and architraves which make arches.’41 Combined with the aforementioned
ideological similarities, the definition of ‘double functioning element’ once again
signals Venturi’s dependence on the theory of New Criticism.
37
Ibid. ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’.
38
W. Sypher, ’The Analogy of Forms in Art’ in Four Stages of Renaissance Style (New York, 1955),
pp. 1-35.
39
Delbeke, ‘Formalism and Formalised Theories of Architecture’
40
Venturi, CCA, pp. 58-59.
41
Delbeke, 'Mannerism and meaning in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture', p. 272; Venturi,
CCA, p. 38.
14
The purpose of this part has been to show that in CCA, Venturi treats the world as ‘an
image reservoir’ from which he selects the appropriate patterns that point to recurring
complexities in architecture.42 One of the key points that arose was the fact that he
does not pay much attention to the historical conditions that shaped the structures, and
that every historical building simply ‘manifests itself in the permanence of surviving
artefacts’ to Venturi.43 Despite the fact that Colquhoun’s criticisms of Venturi’s
attitudes to history and complexity are insightful and astute, they should not be taken
as being particularly damaging. Colquhoun himself de-contextualises Venturi’s
statements by overlooking some of the hints which Venturi leaves to explain his
approach. He also ignores the fact that Venturi had a strong knowledge of architectural
history. Numerous similarities that Delbeke traces between Venturi and Sypher show
that the American architect’s attitudes to history were greatly influenced by the theory
of New Criticism. He consciously employed a formalistic approach to buildings, and
studied architecture from the non-nostalgic point of view that obscures the boundaries
between different mediums and programmes. Paradoxically, it is Venturi – an architect
celebrated for his re-introduction of historical references to the architecture of the
twentieth century – who ‘draws the line that marks the past as foreign and
unreachable.’44
42
I. Davidovici, ‘Abstraction and Artifice’, OASE Journal for Architecture, Vol. 65 (2004), p. 11.
43
44
A. Friedman, ‘It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi House, by Robert Venturi’ in Woman and the
Making of a Modern House (New York, 1998), p. 210.
15
Part 2: History’s role in the criticism of Modernism
‘Should we not […] acknowledge the limitations of systems? ... [recognise] variety
and confusion inside and outside, in program and environment, indeed, at all levels of
experience; and the ultimate limitations of all orders composed by men. When
circumstances deny order, order should break or bend’.
CCA was published during the period when the Modernist style and its
characteristically progressive approach to design were, as Venturi describes them, ‘the
end-all’.45 The philosophy of the movement, also known as the International Style, was
born into the context of a society that was living in the aftermath of the First World
War. These post war years were shaped by expectations of social change, and the
conviction that social order was heading towards a more egalitarian way of life.46 For
the designers and the urban planners, architecture was to become an instrumental force
in bringing about this positive reform.47 The call for social equality was expressed
through simple geometry, formal grids, machine aesthetics, and a down-to-earth and
rational approach to problem solving. Visual bareness of the façade, the elimination of
45
Wrede, ‘An Interview with Robert Venturi’, p. 144.
46
R. Beverly, ‘As Times Go By’, Architecture and Design 1970-1990: New Ideas in America (New
York, 1990), p. 23.
47
‘From 1914 on, the new architecture, expressing the new and necessary facts on which our future will
have to be built ... has embraced its duty with rightful determination to reshape our earth in accordance
with the social needs of today. …this, in fact, is what the world expects from the architect: to form... the
symbols of a new age" – this statement was declared by architect E. Mendelsohn, in Three Lectures on
Architecture: Architecture in a World Crisis, Architecture Today, Architecture in a Rebuilt World
(Berkeley, 1944), cited in Harries et al., ‘The Marketing of Meaning: Aesthetics Incorporated’, p. 462.
16
ornament, and the removal of any associations with historical styles were believed to
indicate a departure from bourgeoisie values and social stratification.48 In short, what
this philosophy amounted to was the expressive pitched rooflines and the decorative
surfaces of pre-modern architecture being replaced by flat roofs and plain walls.49
Venturi understands the Modernist phase as the episode in history wherein the
organic development of architecture is perilously suspended.50 In light of this, one of
the main goals of CCA is the restoration of vitality and playfulness in architecture,
both of which have been eradicated by the abstract and reductive approach to design
that was so characteristic of Modernism. With help from the rich collection of pre-
modern buildings, Venturi launches his attack against those who would stifle
architecture.
Given Venturi’s choice of title, it is no surprise that the Modernists’ fixation on
architectural purity is one of the core principles that CCA directs its criticism
towards.51 Venturi notices that by limiting themselves to a straightforwardly honest
expression of their design processes, architects of the Modernist school had begun to
48
Beverly, ‘As Times Go By’, p. 23.
49
This is a very simplistic visual comparison between Modernist and Post-Modern architecture. One
should be cautious not to blame the Modernists for the relative indifference paid to the façades of their
houses as their philosophy was concentrated on other areas. For the Modernists the process of designing
buildings begun on the inside and moved outward – their emphasis was primarily placed on functional
interior arrangement.
50
51
17
envision buildings based on the concept of rectangular boxes.52 Among the structures
that Venturi targets in the book are buildings designed by such well known figures as
Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. However, evidenced by his passionate
use of language and the overall persuasiveness of what he says, Venturi’s discussion of
the two domestic houses designed by Philip Johnson is probably the most
representative expression of his true feelings. This discussion is symbolically reserved
for the very beginning of the book, and is set on the opposite page to the opening
section of CCA -‘Nonstraightorward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto’. Here, Venturi
considers Johnson’s Wiley House (1952) and Glass House (1948), both built in New
Canaan, CT. Glass House (Fig.3) is an iconic example of a ‘pure’ Modernist structure,
whereas Wiley House (Fig.4) clearly aims to depart from ‘the simplicities of the
elegant pavilion’.53 Here, Johnson separates the living space, which is reserved in the
open glass pavilion, from the private space, which is designed in an opaque rectangular
structure on the ground floor. The rectangles are contrasting in terms of their materials
and function, and the glass pavilion is superimposed on top of the heavy masonry wall.
Venturi questions ‘the relevance of analogies between pavilions and houses’, for he
thinks that pavilions ‘ignore the real complexity and contradiction inherent in the
domestic program.’54 In addition to this, and despite the fact that Wiley House is more
complex than Glass House, Venturi maintains that...
...even here the building becomes a diagram of an oversimplified

program for living – an abstract theory either-or. Where simplicity
52
‘we have operated too long under the restrictions of unbending rectangular forms supposed to have
grown out of the technical requirements of the frame and the mass produced curtain wall.’ – a statement
made by Venturi in reference to P. Johnson’s Seagram Building (1958) in New York. See Venturi, CCA,
p. 50.
53
Ibid., p. 17.
54
Ibid., p. 17.
18
cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland
architecture.55
He concludes the discussion by wittily rephrasing Mies van der Roes’s famous motto
which declares that ‘less is more’: ‘More is not less’ – says Venturi; ‘Less is a bore.’56
Venturi proposes an alternative to the Modernist philosophy of design, and draws his
inspiration from a collection of historical structures. In these pre-modern buildings the
architect rediscovers the ‘messy vitality’ and the passion for diversity as well as the art
of accommodation.57 Venturi cites Renaissance pilasters as one of many great
examples of non-pure and essentially ambiguous elements. They can be ‘at the same
time physically structural or not, symbolically structural through association, and
compositionally ornamental by promoting rhythm’.58 John Soane’s design for his
House and Museum (1808-12) in London, and Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library
(1524-1559) in Florence are just two (from a couple of hundred) examples of ‘non-
pure’ buildings that Venturi mentions. The design of Soane’s house, for instance,
incorporates miniature domes within square interiors, as well as a variety of lanterns,
squinches, and other decorative structural elements in small domestic spaces.59 The
Mannerist qualities of Michelangelo’s library are similarly praised for their ambiguity
and contradictory levels of meaning.60 In short, the alternative approach to design that
Venturi promotes is characterised by an attitude against ‘straightforwardness,’ and a
55
Ibid., p. 17.
56
Ibid., p. 16-7.
57
As opposed to simplistic deduction and abstraction.
58
Ibid., p. 35.
59
Ibid., p. 77.
60
Ibid., pp. 25 and 38.
19
keenness to accommodate a rich variety of elements and meanings. Charles Jencks
succinctly sums up this approach as a call for ‘inclusivism’.61
Another idea that young architects tend to take from reading CCA is a renewed
interest in the concept of architecture as a bearer of symbols. It is not Venturi words
themselves, however, but rather those of Vincent Scully’s ‘Introduction’ to CCA that
really define this principle:
There is no way to separate form from meaning; one cannot exist

without another. There can only be different critical assessments of the
major ways through which form transmits meaning to the viewer:
through empathy, said the nineteenth century, it embodies it; through
the recognition of signs, say the linguists, it conveys it. Each side would
agree that the relevant functioning agent in this process of the human
brain is memory.62
From this follows the idea that architectural forms carry signs of some sort. The vital
instrument in the interpretative process of their meaning is a stored memory. The idea
that there is a connection between architectural form and the familiar is greatly
explored by Venturi in his design of the VVH (discussed in detail in Part 4 of this
paper), though it is not spelled out in the chapters of CCA. Venturi’s dissatisfaction
with the inability of Modernist buildings to communicate collective symbols to people
can, however, be sensed from some of his remarks; indeed, in chapter five he argues
that in ‘promoting the frame and curtain wall, it [Modernist architecture] has separated
61
C. Jencks, 'Post-Modern Architecture’, The New Paradigm in Architecture: the Language of Post-
modernism (London, 2002), p. 58.
62
V. Scully ‘Introduction’ to CCA, pp. 11-12.
20
structure from shelter.’63 By eliminating historical references, the Modernist architects
erased all the associative cultural references from their buildings. The literal expression
of materials and a rational response to functional needs were all that these structures
‘communicated’.64 Venturi’s interest in architectural symbolism is also implied
through his statement that he is in favour of ‘richness of meaning over clarity of
meaning’ – a phrase that is either repeated in or can be inferred from almost every
chapter of CCA.65 By saying that double-functioning or vestigial elements
(characteristic of historical structures) promote richness, he gives some clues to his
readers about how to achieve the desired effect.66 Adrian Forty notes that it is not
surprising that for a number of readers one of the key lessons that CCA teaches is the
assumption that mixed historic references enhance symbolism and meaning in
architecture.67
In this part, it has been established that one of the principle driving forces behind
CCA was Venturi’s desire to denounce the boring uniformity of Modernist
architecture, and to draw attention to its lack of associative cultural references.
Through his use of numerous illustrations of historical buildings, Venturi confirmed
that architecture has, for centuries, been an art of accommodating conflicting design
63
64
Hearn, ‘Implications of Robert Venturi’s Theory of Architecture’, pp. 357-8.
65
Venturi, CCA, pp. 16, 20, 28, 38, 42, 61, 90.
66
Ibid., p. 38.
67
21
codes and complex messages. It was with this historically supported argument that
Venturi launched his call for architectural ‘inclusivism’.68
Despite the fact that Venturi’s arguments against Modernist architecture are fairly
clear and well supported, his stance in terms of historical perspective is rather vague.
The concept of symbolism inherent in de-contextualised forms of historical
architecture is not only indistinctly articulated in CCA, but also problematic. The most
obvious problem with it is that the formalistic approach to architecture – i.e. the
guiding force behind Venturi’s choice of images – logically precludes the exploration
of the semiotic aspects of buildings.69
In Four Stages of Renaissance Style, the literary critic Wylie Sypher argues that the
meaning of any artwork resides in its distinctive form, and thus makes it independent
of external influences. Knowing that Venturi was greatly influenced by his writings,
one can argue that the architect bases his concept of architectural symbolism on that of
Sypher’s. Sypher’s theory is principally built, however, on his observation that each
artwork – regardless of its medium or context – expresses the same sort of
‘contemporary consciousness’ which is different and distinctive from each historical
68
Hearn, ‘Implications of Robert Venturi’s Theory of Architecture’, p. 358.
69
Interest in the semiotic aspects of architecture is much more developed and becomes the driving
theme in Venturi’s next famous treatise Learning from Las Vegas (1977), written in collaboration with
D. Scott Brown and S. Izenour. In this publication, Venturi argues that the most suitable symbols for the
contemporary age are commercial signs attached to neutral buildings that literally communicate the
function of the plain structures.
22
cycle.70 In order to successfully employ Sypher’s theory, Venturi would have had to
have limited his survey of historical buildings to one distinct period in architectural
history, i.e. Mannerism. Because his choice of images is not restricted by any stylistic
or regional boundaries, Venturi’s plea for architectural symbolism in de-contextualised
forms is clearly not compatible with what Sypher is promoting. Moreover, it is
‘contemporary consciousness’ that Sypher’s survey discovers in the arts of Mannerism
and Renaissance, not a symbolism of individual forms that could serve Venturi’s
appeal to enrich meaning in architecture. In short, Venturi merges two distinctive
approaches to historical buildings: formalistic and romantic-semiotic. The dialectic
between these two positions remains unresolved in the book, and, as will be discussed
in the following pages, it remains unresolved in the VVH as well.
70
‘Yet a style - and particularly a major style - being a symbol of contemporary consciousness, will
usually express itself in several media; it is a mode of vision as well as a technique’ – a statement made
by Wylie Sypher in ‘The Analogy of Forms in Art’ in Four Stages of Renaissance Style (New York,
1955), p. 30.
23
Part 3: History, Complexity, and Complex Historical Context
‘If there is a new paradigm, or way of thinking in any field such as architecture, then it
obviously stems from a wider cultural shift, a change in worldview, in religion,
perhaps politics and certainly science. The Gothic, Renaissance and Modern periods all
showed these larger transformations in perspective.’
Charles Jencks,
The New Paradigm in Architecture, p. 1.
‘Every day has its medium. The medium for now is not pure architecture.’
Robert Venturi,
Conversations with architects, p. 249.71
When CCA was first published in 1966, the general mood in America was completely
different from that which fuelled the spread of the International Style. The general
sense of optimism and faith in science that dominated the 1920s and 30s was replaced
in later years by feelings of uncertainty and social unrest. Two of the key forces behind
this shift were the spreading African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–68), and
the rapidly growing opposition to the Vietnam War (1955-77).72 Moved by the
situation, President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961) urged his public to
rethink the status of the American citizen, and to be wary of the ‘terrors’ that the
71
John W. Cook, Heinrich Klotz, 'Interview with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown' in
Conversations with Architects (New York, 1975), pp. 247-266.
72
Tzonis et al., ‘Architecture about Reality’, p. 32.
24
‘wonders of science’ can bring.73 By the mid-1960s, both Kennedy and the famous
civil right activist, Malcolm X, had been assassinated.74 In the following years, the
succeeding administration of Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69) did little to help stabilise
the situation. Johnson’s populist campaigns against poverty were promising ‘real
power’ to the people, but only contributed to the mood of social upheaval and to the
feeling that sources of authority were becoming increasing unreliable.75
Strict definitions and positivistic philosophies were beginning to be increasingly
rejected among architects and various other intellectuals as well. Herbert J. Gans’ in-
depth sociological study of Boston’s West End community of the 1950s revealed a
particularly high level of complexity in the social life of various ethnic groups, and the
existence of so-called ‘shadow urban villages’ within a modern city.76 In the sphere of
city planning theory similar thoughts were expressed in Jane Jacobs’ seminal book on
The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). She discarded the neat and
overly-simplistic zoning into five functions advocated by the Modernists,77 and
established the idea that modern cities are themselves ‘problems of organised
complexity’.78 In the realm of architectural design, among the first to recognise the
emerging new trends was a leading American architectural journal called Progressive
Architecture. In the introduction to a three part series entitled ‘Sixties, the State of
73
Ibid., p. 13.
74
Ibid., p. 32.
75
Ibid., p. 33.
76
C. Jenks, ‘Simplicity and Complexity’ in The Architecture of the Jumping Universe (Chichester,
1997), p. 26. Also, see Herbert J. Gans’s book Urban Villagers: Group and Class in the Life of Italian-
Americans (New York, 1962).
77
Five zones in Modern urban theory are: living, working, circulating, recreating, and governing.
78
J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York, 1961), p. 436.
25
Architecture’ (March-May, 1961) the journal’s editor, Thomas H. Creighton, argued
that ‘chaoticism [is a] major design approach which has to be recognized’.79 Almost
simultaneously, in the winter issue of Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences a social and political scientist, Karl W. Deutsch, published his
speculations about the future possibilities of telecommunication.80 Deutsch
(insightfully) foresaw that various new types of telecommunication will soon become
useful in all areas of life, and a consequence of this will cause a decline in the
centrality of cities.81 To the same discussion one can retrospectively add the
conclusions of Daniel Bell; in a widely-read book entitled The Coming of Post-
Industrial Society (1973), Bell locates the transition from post-industrial to information
society in the United States sometime in the 1950s.82
One can imagine how wide a gap between the idealistic-pure approach of the
Modernists and the dynamism of the actual urban experience must have looked in the
1960s. By this time the appearance and organisation of American cities had been
significantly influenced by the strategies of all-governing order, reduction, and
79
Thomas H. Creighton cited in Tzonis et al., Architecture in North America since 1960, p. 10. To this
discussion one can also add James M. Richards’s article ‘Lessons from the Japanese Jungle’, The
Listener (13 March, 1969), pp. 339-340. Richards worked as the editor of Architectural Review from
1937 to 1971.
80
Ibid., p. 26. See also Karl W. Deutsch, ‘On Social Communication and the Metropolis,’ Daedalus
issue ‘The Future Metropolis’ (Winter, 1961), pp. 99-110.
81
Tzonis et al., Architecture in North America since 1960, p. 26. Another proponent of this theory is the
urban theorist Melvin Webber (1920-2006); see his book Explorations into Urban Structure
(Philadelphia, 1964).
82
L.R. Bachman, ‘Architecture and the four encounters with complexity’, Architectural Engineering
and Design Management, Vol. 4, No.1 (2008), p. 20. See also D. Bells’s The Coming of Post-Industrial
Society: a Venture in Social Forecasting (New York, 1972).
26
systematisation promoted by the exponents of the International Style.83 Their
aspirations for timelessness and universality have been epitomised in such structures as
Venturi’s much criticised Seagram Building (1958) in New York.84 The paradox here
was that the box-like structures such as Seagram and its numerous sibling projects did
not created an ordered cityscape.85 They might have conformed to the laws of
symmetry and repetitive aesthetics, but the ugliness, noise, and chaos were still just as
integral components of the city as they were before.86 When confronted with the
emerging complexity theories in science and the context of social upheaval, the clash
between the real and the utopian was particularly well demonstrated by the Modernist
projects.
It has been suggested by a number of CCA’s interpreters that such an obvious change
in perspective from understanding the world as certain/simple to uncertain/complex is
the key driving force behind the whole book.87 Indeed, after a careful reading of CCA,
one could easily come away with the impression that Venturi is primarily concerned
with the present condition; it is not a passion to study historical architecture that the
book really inspires, but rather a desire to create a richer architecture, and one that
83
F. Schulze, ‘Recessional, 1958-69’ in Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography (London and Chicago,
1985), p. 298.
84
Venturi criticises the Seagram Building in CCA, p. 50; also see M. Drolet, ‘Introduction' to The
Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts (London, 2004), p. 10.
85
Schulze, ‘Recessional, 1958-69’, p. 298.
86
Gleiniger and Vrachliotis, 'The Complexity of Complexity', p. 9.
87
Ibid, p. 9; Wiseman, ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’, p. 259; Delbeke, 'Mannerism and meaning in
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture', p. 276.
27
tracks more closely to reality.88 Venturi’s awareness of the most progressive
complexity theories of the time is made clear from the very opening lines of CCA…
Everywhere, except in architecture, complexity and contradiction have

been acknowledged, from Gödel's proof of ultimate inconsistency in
mathematics to […] Joseph Albers’ definition of the paradoxical quality
of painting.89
The increasingly complex contemporary context consequently becomes a strong
foundation for yet another dose of Venturi’s criticism of Modernist architecture and
urbanism. The greatest failure of the Modernists for him is not so much their insistence
on the economy of means, or their restricted operation within ‘unbending rectangular
forms’, but rather their failure to acknowledge the complexity of modern experience.90
Venturi identifies the reductive philosophy of the Modernists with that which is
‘uncomplicated’. He quotes extracts from Wright and Le Corbusiers’ writings about
architectural purity, and establishes that the Modernists idealise ‘the primitive and
elementary at the expense of the diverse and the sophisticated.’91 To differentiate the
International Style from his own philosophy, Venturi uses August Heckscher’s poetic
metaphor about the maturation of a human being. ‘The movement from a view of life
as essentially simple and orderly to a view of life as complex and ironic is what every
88
Tzonis et al., ‘Venturi and Scott Brown: Vanna Venturi House’, p. 89.
89
90
Ibid., pp. 16 and 44; also see M.C. Taylor, 'Superficial Complexity' in The Moment of Complexity:
Emerging Network Culture (USA, 2001), p. 35; Wiseman, ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’, p. 259.
91
For example, Venturi quotes F. L. Wright: ‘Visions of simplicity so broad and far-reaching would
open to me and such building harmonies appear that … would change and deepen the thinking and
culture of the modern world.’ See CCA, p. 16.
28
individual passes through in becoming mature.’92 From this logically follows the
implication that the Modernists are at the ‘teenage’ stage, and as such stand for
idealistic principles that stand at odds with actual reality.
The ‘mature’ approach to architecture and urban planning that Venturi proposes is
best encapsulated by the closing chapter of CCA. Here, Venturi openly disagrees with
Peter Blake’s aesthetic criticism of a commercial High Street presented in his book
God’s Own Junkyard (1964).93 As a prominent proponent of Modernism, Blake is
dissatisfied with the chaotic nature of the busy street, and advocates an all-
encompassing urban reform. In response to Blake, Venturi argues that ‘the commercial
strip of a Route 66 is almost alright’ (Fig.5), and the ‘seemingly chaotic juxtapositions
of [its] honky-tonk elements express an intriguing kind of vitality and validity.’94 What
is evident from Venturi’s statement is that he proposes a fairly tolerant approach to the
pre-existing landscape.95 In addition to this, Venturi’s position is much more
democratic and realistic; he aims neither to eliminate the chaotic aspect from human
experience, nor to impose a strict control over the urban fabric.96 When commenting
on this statement in his interview with Stuart Wrede, Venturi indeed confirms that he
promotes an anti-utopian vision, and adds that ‘the architecture of complexity would
not necessarily solve the world’s problems’.97
92
A. Heckscher, The Public Happiness (New York, 1962) p. 102 quoted in CCA, p. 16.
93
94
Ibid., p. 104.
95
Taylor, 'Superficial Complexity', p. 35.
96
Ibid., p. 37.
97
Wrede, ‘An Interview with Robert Venturi’, pp. 148 and 153.
29
It would, however, be wrong to think that CCA promotes anything akin to ‘disorder’.
On the contrary, harmonic unity is equally a goal of both the Modernists and of
Venturi, although each defines it differently.98 According to Venturi, the Modernists
are in favour of an ‘easy unity’ which is achieved by eliminating any and all
‘awkward’ elements from their projects.99 By contrast, Venturi promotes a ‘difficult
unity’ which accommodates a ‘diversity of [architectural] elements in relationships
that are inconsistent’.100 The image of a High Street (Fig.5) embodies this ideal of
unity as it balances on the verge of losing order, but the overall control is somehow
held in equilibrium.101 The underlying tension gives the image force and validity in the
context of the contemporary cultural condition.102 Moreover, the ‘difficult unity’
concept allows Venturi to maintain a rather open-minded approach to Modernist
architecture. Not only are the Modernist structures valid components in the
‘complex/difficult’ cityscape, but some of them even incorporate complexities and
contradictions. When looking at Modernist architecture, Venturi employs exactly the
same formal analysis techniques as he uses for the historical buildings, and in fact
finds that some of the designs of Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto are sufficiently
complex.103 This ‘discovery’ once again confirms that Venturi does not have any
nostalgic sentiments for historical architecture. Such a conclusion also contributes
98
99
Venturi, CCA, p. 88; Forty, Words and Buildings, p. 250.
100
101
Venturi, CCA, pp. 88 and 104.
102
Ibid., p. 104.
103
For instance, Venturi argues that Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (1928) at Poissy ‘is simple outside yet
complex inside’, while the outer shell of Aalto’s Maisson Carrée (1956-9) at Bazoches-sur-Guyonne
‘contradicts the interior spaces below’. See CCA, pp. 23 and 72. What follows from such statements is
that either the Modernist principles are compatible with complexity theory or the Modernist architects
contradict their own beliefs. This contradiction in Venturi’s argument is used as a criticism of CCA in
Colquhoun, ‘Sign and Substance’ p. 140.
30
towards creating the impression of a rather objective piece of writing, or, in other
words, a ‘mature theory’.
As one might expect, it is contemporary science and literary criticism that provide the
inspiration for Venturi’s concept of a ‘difficult whole’. For example, Philosophy
professor Brian Elliot argues that in the writings of the aforementioned critic, Thomas
Eliot, Venturi uncovers ‘a notion of cultural holism that includes rather than rejects the
reality of fragmentation.’104 In addition to this, Venturi quotes extracts describing the
difficulty of unity from literary critic Cleanth Brooks’s book The Well Wrought Urn
(1947).105 Also worthy of acknowledgement is his debt to the economist Herbert A.
Simon’s article on cybernetics ‘The Architecture of Complexity’ (1962).106 The
American Architect not only cites Simon’s definition of unity in complex
mathematical systems, 107 but also heavily relies on it when assessing the High
Street.108
While contemporary science teaches Venturi about the complexity of the modern
world, it is the visual arts that give him lessons about how to comprehend the present-
104
B. Elliott, 'Postmodern Urbanism' in Configurations of the Social in Contemporary Philosophy and
Urbanism (Plymouth, 2010), p 107.
105
Cleanth Brooks writes in The Well Wrought Urn: ‘He is rather giving us insight which preserves the
unity of experience and which, at its higher and more serious levels, triumphs over the apparently
contradictory and conflicting elements of experience by unifying them into a new pattern.’ Quoted in
CCA, p. 20.
106
Full article can be found at H. A. Simon, ‘The Architecture of Complexity’, Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, Vol. 106, No. 60 (December, 1962), pp. 467-482.
107
Simon describes difficult unity in ‘The Architecture of Complexity’ p. 468 as ‘a larger number of
parts that interact in a non-simple way’. Quoted in CCA, p. 88.
108
31
day reality; and one of the most progressive art movements of the 1960s was Pop Art.
In a similar way to various scientists, the Pop artists shift their interest from positivistic
ideals to much more profane paradigms.109 What distinguishes them is a highly ironic
approach which functions as a tool for helping them to face the absurdity and banality
of everyday reality.110 In CCA, Venturi expresses his admiration for Pop artists, and
insightfully comments on their techniques.111 In particular he is fascinated by their
witty and playful approaches to context, and Venturi demonstrates his understanding
of how by putting ‘old clichés in new settings [the Pop artists] achieve rich meanings
which are ambiguously both old and new, banal and vivid.’112 Indeed, it is by using
precisely such a method that artists like Andy Warhol elevate Campbell's Soup Cans
(1962) to a level of collectable art.113 In a similar way, concepts of irony and toying
with the relativity of meaning become, for Venturi, important devices in helping to
face the vulgarity of the busy High Street and in justifying the conclusion that it is in
fact ‘almost alright’.114
Despite the fact that Venturi’s visual emphasis on historical architecture is of
secondary importance, some sources suggest that his obvious preference for Baroque
and Mannerist architecture has some symbolical significance. A famous essay ‘La
retorica e l'arte barocca’ (1955) by the art historian Giulio Carlo Argan serves as a
109
Ibid., p. 44.
110
111
Venturi, CCA, pp. 20, 43-4, 104.
112
Ibid., p. 44.
113
I use Warhol’s Soup Cans as a well known example. Venturi does not refer to Warhol in CCA.
114
Irony is also a distancing device; it is often employed as a tool to mask existential anxiety and
scepticism. It is important to bear this in mind when trying to understand Venturi’s ‘naïve’ attitudes to
history, and populist approach to High Street.
32
reference point for linking the historical styles with Venturi’s writings.115 In his
analysis of Baroque art and architecture, Argan rejects the politics of the Catholic
Church as the key force shaping the style.116 For him, the very heart of Baroque lies in
its rhetorical purpose to mediate the complexity of the seventeenth century Roman
society and its needs.117 The idea that formal complexity in architecture helps to
mediate the complexity of society is key to both CCA and Venturi’s later book
Learning from Las Vegas (1977).118 Also, and in a similar way to Argan, Venturi often
ignores various political factors that play an important role in shaping the appearance
of Baroque architecture (see Part 1). The influence of the Italian historian on Venturi
is acknowledged neither in CCA nor in his interviews. Given the fact, however, that
Argan’s essay was published at the time when Venturi studied Roman Baroque and
Mannerism in situ, it is plausible that he was aware of the paper.119 Moreover, an
interesting connection between the Mannerism of the sixteenth century and the late
twentieth century neo-mannerism has recently been proposed by the architectural
historian Irina Davidovici. In her article ‘Abstraction and Artifice’ (2004), she argues
that Mannerist and neo-mannerist periods flourish in similar cultural conditions. Some
of the similarities she identifies between the late-sixteenth and late-twentieth centuries
include the destabilisation of higher values and the representational crisis in art.120
Furthermore, Vincent Scully argues in his ‘Introduction’ to CCA that Venturi’s
‘philosophy and design are humanistic’ as they consider ‘before all else the actions of
115
Delbeke, 'Mannerism and meaning in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture', p. 269.
116
Ibid., p. 269.
117
Ibid., p. 269.
118
Ibid., p. 269.
119
Ibid., p. 269.
120
See I. Davidovici, ‘Abstraction and Artifice’, OASE Journal for Architecture, Vol. 65 (2004), pp.
100-137.
33
human beings and the effects of physical forms upon their spirits’.121 If evaluated from
this perspective, Venturi promotes a design philosophy that springs from the very heart
of the old Italian tradition.122
It has been argued in this part that the underlying goal behind Venturi’s thoughts on
complex historical architecture was to inspire architects to respond to the changing
socio-cultural context. When people were protesting on the streets and various
intellectuals were encountering complexity in many fields, the Modernist approach to
buildings and the urban fabric simply started to look obsolete. The attack that Venturi
launched on the Modernists was thus not only a formal criticism of their aesthetics, but
also a much deeper criticism of their utopian ideology, which highlighted its
incompatibility with reality.
It has also been shown that Venturi’s writings were quite significantly influenced by
the contemporary development of scientific complexity theories and the Pop Art
movement. Though ‘messy’ and intentionally ironic, the approach to design and urban
fabric that Venturi proposed was considered to be a rather ‘mature’ take on the current
urban situation. The architect himself described his view as ‘not only anti-utopian, but
also anti-nostalgic.’123 As a response to the complicated and fragmented nature of the
world at the time, his proposal of a ‘difficult’ kind of architectural vision was tolerant
121
Scully ‘Introduction’ to CCA, p. 10.
122
For more about the humanist tradition of Italian Renaissance and Baroque architecture, see G. Scott,
The Architecture of Humanism: a Study in the History of Taste (New York, 1999), pp. 123-8.
123
Wrede, ‘An Interview with Robert Venturi’, p. 153.
34
of the pre-existing landscape, to the historical context, and even (to some extent) to
Modernist buildings.
Although some subtle connections have been traced between Venturi’s theories and
the Baroque and Mannerist periods, the key idea communicated in this part was that
the primary function of historical buildings in CCA was a rather minor one. Since the
architect’s concerns were directed towards mediating the richness of contemporary life
in architecture, historical structures principally served only as visual evidence in
Venturi’s plea for complexity. This, however, does not mean that his conception of
history itself was a simple one. When re-assed in the light of the influence of Pop Art,
one can argue quite the opposite. The concept of ‘history’ in CCA is not mixed with
that of ‘the past’.124 For reasons similar to those of the Pop Artists, the manipulation of
historical images and playing with the relativity of meaning is a conscious act of the
present for Venturi.125 It is for this reason that Venturi is able to look at historical
buildings from a detached perspective, and to see in them only the design qualities that
interest him.
124
125
Friedman, ‘It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi House’, p. 210.
35
Part 4: History in the Vanna Venturi House
‘This house recognizes complexities and contradictions: it is both complex and simple,
open and closed, big and little… It achieves the difficult unity of a medium number of
diverse parts rather than an easy unity of few or many motival parts.’
R. Venturi, CCA, p. 118
Venturi was asked by his mother, Vanna, to draw plans for her new house at Chestnut
Hill, PA in 1959.126 At this point the architect was thirty-four, and most of his projects
still existed only on paper.127 Like so many parental commissions, the VVH was
intended to help Venturi with his career.128 He was given a rare degree of freedom as
Vanna did not set any strict deadlines or give a list of any particular program
requirements; in fact the only limiting factor was a rather modest budget.129 Since
Venturi was already busy with writing CCA and teaching at the University of
Pennsylvania, it took him nearly five years to produce a design that he was satisfied
with.130 Through his interviews and the description of the house in CCA, it is
confirmed that the project was a deliberate attempt to put some of CCA’s ideas into
126
F. Schwartz (ed.), Mother’s House: the Evolution of Vanna Venturi’s House in Chestnut Hill (New
York, 1992), p. 16.
127
Only two of Venturi’s designs were built before the VVH: Guild House in Philadelphia, PA (1960-
3), and the North Penn Visiting Nurses’ Association Headquarters in Ambler, PA (completed in 1961).
128
Schwartz, Mother’s House, p. 21.
129
Ibid., p. 22.
130
‘Bob was a lonely bachelor during those days. While living with his mother, he seemed to work
every evening on the house as an almost desperate act to protect his own identity and express his
architectural ideas’ – such is the recollection of Venturi’s colleague Phillip Finkelpearl. See Schwartz,
Mother’s House, pp. 22-3.
36
practice.131 In accordance with the topic of this dissertation, the purpose of this fourth
and final part is to examine the use of historical references in the VVH. Before
embarking on this analysis, I will begin by giving a brief overview of the design of the
house.
The first impression that the house gives to a passer-by is that of a rather ordinary
building. The overall silhouette of the structure is symmetrical. The façade is
dominated by a gable roof and it has a conventional combination of a chimney, porch,
entrance door, and windows (Fig.6). In terms of cognitive associations, this
composition is universally associated with the concept of a shelter.132 In particular it is
the gable roof – the basic component of any child’s drawing of a house – that indicates
that this is someone’s home.133 The ground floor plan does not look especially
pretentious either. It has an elementary tripartite division within which the kitchen,
living, and sleeping areas are situated (Fig.7). All of these spaces are arranged around
the chimney and hearth which are typically traditional focal points of a house. The
ordinariness of these key design aspects of the VVH is particularly acutely exposed
when the house is viewed in its original setting. Just up the road from the Vanna’s
residence is Esherick House (1959-61) which Louis I. Kahn designed for his mother
(Fig.8). From this flat-roofed and greatly abstracted design all references that suggest a
131
In the interview with Frederic Schwartz on the 2nd of October, 1991 Venturi says: ‘What I wrote in
the book was what I was thinking about while I was drawing the house.’ Cited in Schwartz, Mother’s
House, p. 13.
132
V. Scully, ‘Robert Venturi’s Gentle Architecture’, Modern Architecture and Other Essays (Oxford,
2003), p. 265.
133
Critics often associate the VVH with a child’s drawing. See: Ibid., 265; D. Kahl, 'Robert Venturi and
His Contributions to Postmodern Architecture', Oshkosh Scholar, Vol. 3, (April, 2008), p. 60.
37
‘house’ are eliminated.134 When seen in relation to the neighbouring Esherick House it
looks as if Venturi consciously exploits the clichés in the VVH, and by so doing
mockingly says that it is ‘time to remove architecture from the universalities and make
it once more familiar… cosy, and appealing to ordinary people’.135
There is, however, something unsettling in the VVH’s composition. For instance,
why does the gable roof have a massive split in the centre? Why is there such a
contrast between the shape of the roof in the front and at the rear of the house (Fig.9)?
Why does Venturi emphasise symmetry in the outline of the façade and simultaneously
abandon it in the arrangement of the windows? And above all, what is meant by the
awkward positioning of the stairs (Figs. 7 and 10) or the ‘nowhere stair’ (Fig.11)?136
Such questions invite the observer to engage in a critical contemplation of what at first
seems like a conventional or even a banal structure.137 Indeed, the composition of the
VVH has a dynamic tension in almost every aspect of its design, and the deeper one
contemplates it, the more complex and contradictory it looks. For instance, the house
has a rather rigid rectangular shaped plan, though the sense of enclosure is deliberately
compromised by various types of openings set precariously close to the corners
(Fig.7).138 Such an arrangement not only contradicts the function of load bearing walls
but also make them look like appliqué screens (Figs.12-13). Although the porch is a
134
Scully, ‘Robert Venturi’s Gentle Architecture’, p. 265; V. Scully, ‘Everybody Needs Everything’ in
Mother’s House, p. 44.
135
T. Wolfe, From Bauhaus to our house (London, 1982), p. 104. It is interesting to note that in the first
review of the VVH the house appeared in Architectural Review (in Feburary 1966) next to an entirely
insignificant suburban building which was labelled by the reviewer as ‘mainstream’. See Tzonis et al.,
‘Vanna Venturi House’, p. 86.
136
137
Tzonis et al., ‘Architecture about Reality’, p. 30.
138
38
central and prominent feature of the façade, the entrance door is unconventionally
pushed to the side of the recess (Fig.7), and the perimeter of the porch is contradicted
by its shallowness (Fig.13). Moreover, due to the split in the gable roof above, there is
no cover that could shelter somebody standing on the porch (Fig.14). In a similar
manner, the interior spaces are no less contradictory. Venturi states that ‘They
correspond to the complexities inherent in the domestic program as well as to some
whimsies not inappropriate to an individual house.’139 The integration of such
complexities results in such puzzling spaces as the first floor bedroom (Fig.15). This
room has unconventionally shaped windows that are located in unorthodox places;
also, the walls seem to be lacking right angles, and one of the doors opens to a set of
stairs that lead to nowhere. Despite this, the bedroom space that Venturi creates is
remarkably convenient and habitable. Although his mother does not get direct sunlight,
the room is commodious, and the ‘nowhere stair’ is actually quite conveniently located
for cleaning the higher windows in the space outside the bedroom (Fig.16).140 This
preference for practicality can be seen in other rooms as well.141As new, functional
considerations enter the program of the house, the previously planned elements are
pushed and squeezed to accommodate all sorts of ideas. It is by employing such design
operations that Venturi aims to create a ‘difficult unity though inclusion’ – the primary
objective of CCA discussed in the previous parts.142
139
Ibid., p. 118.
140
141
Tzonis et al., ‘Vanna Venturi House’, p. 89; Friedman, ‘It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi
House’, p. 200.
142
39
In a similar fashion to the formal arrangement of the design’s aspects, references to
various historical styles appear throughout the VVH in a piecemeal manner. The
residence combines indirect references to the classical, vernacular, and Modernist
styles. The façade of the house, for instance, accommodates such classical-inspired
details as the pediment, lintel, and arch (Fig.13), while at the rear the house is a half-
round Palladian window (Fig.9). The oversized gable roof, prominent chimney, dormer
windows, and broken roofline, on the other hand, are characteristic elements of
vernacular architecture. In the VVH’s case these details come from the Shingle style
architecture, which Venturi particularly admired.143 Among the most frequently cited
Shingle style residences that inspired the architect are McKim, Mead & White’s Low
House (1886-7) at Bristol, Rhode Island, Bruce Prince’s Chandler Cottage (1885-6)
and Kent House (1885-6) both at Tuxedo Park, N.Y., and Wright’s Home and Studio
(1889) at Oak Park, Il. (Figs.17-8).144 Nods to Modernist architectural influences come
from such details as the thin and light structure of the VVH, the strip-like windows in
the kitchen (Fig.19), and the single column on the ground floor (Fig.20).145 In her
analysis of the house, Alice Friedman argues that the column is an ironic reference to
the pilotis from Le Corbusier’s designs of the 1920s; its placement next to a load
bearing wall logically contradicts its purpose, and symbolically points to the
redundancy of Modernist principles in this residence.146
143
144
Scully, ‘Robert Venturi’s Gentle Architecture’, p. 265.
145
Also, important to note that Luigi Moretti’s apartment block on the Via Parioli (1949) in Rome has
been suggested as an important example of Modern architecture that inspired Venturi. The central void
in the design of the block is believed to inspire the split pediment in the VVH.
146
40
In a similar way, references to historical styles are generally not literal, and their
application opposes nearly all principles of restoration. The classicising details on the
façade are highly schematised and distorted. The entrance arch is unnaturally
interrupted by both the split in the pediment and by the lintel. Also, the lintel and the
arch are so insubstantial that they have no (obvious) functional justifications
(Fig.13).147 Such (pre-Puginesque) disrespect for the relationship between the
ornament and the structure encourages the application of random floating decorations
in the VVH. Another example of Venturi’s fascination with the purposeless ornament
is the strips of moulding running horizontally across the façade (Fig.12). Originally
they were used to indicate different stories in Renaissance palazzos, but in the VVH
they perform a purely decorative function. In addition to this, not only is the pediment
broken and its proportions distorted, but in general there is little historical (and logical)
justification for the application of classical references in a domestic project in
America.148
Some clues to the logic behind Venturi’s apparently naïve treatments of historical
references are provided in CCA. Part 2 of this paper has shown the way in which the
architect treats historical references as ‘culturally meaningful devices’ that stimulate
some sort of collective memory in the observers.149 It has also been established that
this theory is problematic as it clashes with the strictly formalistic stance that Venturi
employs when analysing historical buildings. This shortcoming becomes particularly
evident when CCA’s ideas are applied in practice: neither the meaning nor the
147
Wiseman, ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’, pp. 250-1.
148
Hearn, ‘Implications of Robert Venturi’s Theory of Architecture’, pp. 358-9.
149
41
pragmatic justification of de-contextualised and jumbled historical references is made
clear in the façade of the VVH. In his essay on ‘The Outbreak of the Ordinary’,
Wiseman glosses over this weakness by arguing that for Venturi meaning is ‘located
behind, or beyond, explicit iconography’; by employing ‘half-baked and attenuated’
historical references, Venturi aims for nothing more than to simply stimulate ‘a
preconscious apprehension of the familiar’.150 The architecturally correct application
of historical references is thus not only unnecessary, but also undesirable as the
distortions create desirable complexities in architecture.
The manipulation of familiar references is Venturi’s primary vehicle for producing
the so-called ‘cultural layering’ in the design of the house. This phenomenon occurs
‘when a format clearly belonging to one building type is employed for a different
purpose’.151 In the VVH – like in a Pop Art painting, or a Dada collage – the familiar
historical references are mixed with references to popular culture and make their re-
appearance in unexpected contexts.152 The meaning of such references becomes
relatively independent from the original (historical) meaning, as the mixed references
are made to work in new relations to the elements that are placed around them.153 This
type of recycling of familiar references creates what Millard Hearn describes as ‘a
titillating cultural tension’ because the conflicting references communicate disparate
150
Ibid., pp. 309-10.
151
M.F. Hearn ‘Convolutions: Theory since 1965’, Ideas That Shaped Buildings (London, 2003), p. 314;
152
Friedman, ‘It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi House’, p. 210; Kahl, 'Robert Venturi and His
Contributions to Postmodern Architecture', p. 58; Jenks, ‘Simplicity and Complexity’, p. 28.
153
Friedman, ‘It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi House’, pp. 209-10.
42
messages about their original meaning as well as their new function.154 Such a playful
layering of meaning is created by a man who is well aware of history and of the
complex and fragmented nature of the contemporary cultural condition. The paradox
here is that the design of the VVH is a particularly accurate testimony to the historical
context of the 1960s; it is highly intellectually charged, while at the same time being
historically incorrect.155
One fundamental problem with the design of the Vanna’s residence is that it does not
live up to Venturi’s own theory. Despite the fact that the house is described in CCA as
an example of ‘difficult unity’,156 the distortions and complexities embedded in the
building look very artificial. What is particularly surprising when one analyses the
VVH is how much attention Venturi pays to an individual fragment or, more precisely,
to a group of them.157 Most of the design elements in the house are treated individually
and sequentially.158 The Harvard professor of Architecture, Neil Levine, vividly
describes how they ‘pull away from the whole, denying its integral consistency and
thus distinguishing themselves in purely representational terms.’159 Indeed, Venturi not
only fails to achieve a difficult unity in the VVH, but – in a fashion reminiscent of the
Modernist architects – he chooses to follow an easy path.160 By consciously
disregarding the original meanings of historical elements, what he is actually doing is
154
155
156
See introductory quotation to Part 4.
157
158
Ibid., 210.
159
Neil Levine ‘Return to Historicism’ in C. Mead (ed.) The Architecture of Robert Venturi (USA,
1989), pp. 45-67.
160
43
distorting their proportions and violating them by the strategies of abstraction to
achieve a mere simplification of everything.161
Another shortcoming of Venturi’s theory – and one that is particularly well exposed
in the VVH – is his treatment of historical references as commodities. The relaxed
manner in which he handles various references implies that meanings associated with
architectural fragments can be simply ‘catalogued for designers to select, apply, and
manipulate’.162 This aspect of Venturi’s theory and architecture becomes a target of
Paul Harries and Alan Lipman’s article on ‘The Marketing of Meaning: Aesthetics
Incorporated’ (1982). Together they argue that Venturi’s work contributes to a
dominant orientation towards consumerism in which the architect presents himself as
an ‘entrepreneur of meaning’ who simply packages familiar references for mass
consumption.163 Similar conclusions are reached by the British critic, Kenneth
Frampton, and the American writer, Fredric Jameson. In his article on ‘Modern
Architecture’, Frampton argues that ‘Post-Modernism as a polemic, consciously or
unconsciously intends the destruction of the resistance of architecture and its reduction
to the status of one more consumer good.’164 In a similar vein, Jameson’s book
Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) also associates
161
Ibid., p. 262. In Learning from Las Vegas Venturi acknowledges his failure to achieve the difficult
unity in the VVH. Also see Tzonis et al., ‘Venturi and Scott Brown: Vanna Venturi House’, p. 86; and
Colquhoun, ‘Sign and Substance’ p. 142.
162
Harries et al., ‘The Marketing of Meaning: aesthetics incorporated’, p. 458.
163
Ibid., pp. 458 and 462.
164
K. Frampton, ‘Modern architecture’, Domus No.610 (1980), p. 26 cited in Harries et al., ‘The
Marketing of Meaning: aesthetics incorporated’, p. 462.
44
Venturi’s work with – as the title suggests – capitalism, consumerism and ‘an
unapologetic celebration of aestheticism.’165
Among the most severe critics of Venturi and Post-Modernism in general, however,
is the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. In his controversial paper on ‘Modern
and Postmodern Architecture’ (1981), Habermas compares Venturi to a ‘surrealist
stage designer’ who adapts the ‘modern design methods [of simplification] in order to
coax picturesque effects from aggressively mixed styles.’166 A crucial aspect of the
contemporary cultural condition that Venturi fails to notice is that the concept of
difficult unity ‘can no longer be architecturally formulated’.167 For this reason
Habermas regards Venturi’s technique of manipulating familiar references as nothing
more than a failure of imagination or a symptom of neo-conservatism. As an
alternative to Post-Modernism, Habermas proposes a critically revisited continuation
of Modernist architecture which still has some unrealised potential.
The primary purpose of this part has been to give an overview of the design of the
VVH and to analyse Venturi’s use of historical references in its construction. It has
been shown that the architect wants to express his ideas on two levels: physically,
through form, but also psychologically, through the observer’s cognitive
165
T. Woods, ‘Postmodern Architecture and Concepts of Space’, Beginning Postmodernism
(Manchester, 1999), pp. 94-5. For more about Jameson’s writings see N. Leach (ed.) Rethinking
Architecture: a Reader in Cultural Theory (London, 1997) pp. 224-255.
166
J. Habermas, ‘Modern and Postmodern Architecture’, in N. Leach (ed.) Rethinking Architecture: A
reader in cultural theory, p. 222. Habermas’ essay was originally published in New German Critique,
No. 22, Special Issue on Modernism (Winter, 1981), pp. 3-14. The name of the essay is sometimes
translated as ‘Modernity versus Postmodernity’.
167
Ibid., p. 222.
45
associations.168 The unorthodox compositional decisions in the house – like the famous
‘nowhere stair’ – influence the observer empathically, through their body, while the
familiar references to various architectural styles engage their intellectual faculties.169
It has also been argued that the familiar association with a ‘home’ communicated by
the shape of the VVH is particularly prominent when one sees the residence in relation
to the neighbouring Esherick House. This High Modernist structure could as well be an
office building or a bank since all familiar domestic associations have deliberately
been removed from it. What Venturi creates is in many ways a deliberate reaction
against all that Esherick House celebrates: he consciously violates compositional rules
and assertively exploits various historical associations. The resulting structure is a
remarkably functional and cosy artefact, though also, simultaneously, a solid
institution of real life.170
The analysis of the façade has also shown that Venturi was neither literal in his
application of historical references, nor unwilling to admit that history was a source of
his inspiration.171 The de-contextualised and aggressively fragmented references to the
past, however, have been used by the architect simply as prompts to stimulate
memories and other cultural associations. When placed in unexpected compositional
situations, and mixed with other styles, they achieve new meanings, and create cultural
layering. Such a simplistic treatment of historical references became an important
168
169
Ibid., p. 265.
170
Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House, p. 104.
171
46
inroad and basis for the criticisms of a number of commentators.172 Indeed, Venturi
seems to be missing the point that people are not passive consumers of pre-packaged
meanings – they are assigned to physical environments by people.173 Furthermore, and
perhaps most significantly, it has been established that the design of the VVH does not
accomplish Venturi’s primary goal of embodying the concept of a difficult unity. Due
to his great emphasis on individual fragments, the complexities in the formal
arrangement of the house look decidedly artificial. In defence of Venturi, one can
argue that his work is very much embedded in the contemporary context; Pop Art, and
the emerging complexity of science definitely influenced the design of the VVH in the
same way as they influenced CCA. Also, Venturi can gloss over most of the
shortcomings of the Vanna’s residence by ironically saying that the building is
investigating the epistemological side of architecture, for ‘how do we know things
have to be the way they are?’174
172
173
Harries et al., ‘The Marketing of Meaning: aesthetics incorporated’, p. 458.
174
Tzonis et al., ‘Architecture about Reality’, pp. 30-1; Drolet, ‘Introduction', p. 12.
47
Conclusion
‘I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Venturi designs, more for their ideological
input, their profound comments on our culture, their intense and often angry wit, their
consummate one-upmanship, than for their architectural results.’
Ada Luise Huxtable, ‘Buildings You Love to Hate’
New York Times, October 10, 1971
The concept of history presents a curious case in both CCA and the VVH. The analysis
of Venturi’s treatment of historical architecture in CCA has revealed that he is
primarily interested in surface effects; he uses his broad knowledge of history as a
virtual database from which he extracts images, capturing the design qualities that
interest him. This rich and carefully composed pictorial compendium of ‘complex’
architecture adds a strong sense of validity to his criticism of the ‘pure’ aesthetics of
Modernism, and to a great extent compensates for the occasional obscurities in his
arguments. Although Venturi analyses historical examples from a strictly formalistic
perspective, when it comes to his attack on Modernist architecture he switches to the
romantic-semiotic view of history. For him, Modernist buildings are lacking in
familiar cultural associations, which he thinks are somehow embedded in de-
contextualised references to historical architecture. The inconsistency in, and
subsequent shortcomings of Venturi’s theory are exposed when applied in the VVH.
Neither the actual meaning of the distorted references to historical architecture is
articulated in the project, nor does Venturi manage to achieve his primary goal – a
48
difficult compositional unity. The complexities in the VVH look superficial, and
Venturi’s treatment of history comes across as naïve and frivolous.
Although historically incorrect, Venturi’s work stands as a particularly fine testimony
to the historical context of the 1960s. Influenced by contemporary scientific
complexity theories and Pop Art, Venturi’s CCA called for a new type of architecture
that was sensitive to the current cultural condition. When the sources of authority were
crumbing in political, scientific and cultural spheres, the positivistic philosophy of the
Modernists simply started to look obsolete. The VVH was a conscious attempt to
capture the significant change in viewpoint from understanding the surrounding world
as simple and ordered to seeing it complex and fragmented. With respect to this goal,
the Vanna’s residence can be considered a successful project; by mixing together
familiar references, Venturi achieved his aim of making a powerful ironic statement
about the cultural displacement and relativity of meaning in the contemporary world.
One problem with this is that for such a durable medium this achievement is hardly to
claim a virtue;175 architecture that is inspired by pop culture – in a similar manner to
humour, for instance – cannot endure beyond the context of the time in which it was
created.176 The fragility of Venturi’s theory is reflected in the transience of the VVH’s
design: unlike enduring pieces of architecture by Kahn or Le Corbusier, the Vanna’s
residence quickly became outdated.177
175
176
Ibid., p. 261.
177
Ibid., pp. 265-6.
49
The second and third generations of Post-Modernists went to great lengths to relieve
the tension between history and the present, and between the timeless and the transient
things that are so acutely exposed in the designs of Venturi and his immediate
followers. The emergent approach to history is beautifully summed up by the
contemporary architect Daniel Libeskind, who says that ‘to produce meaningful
architecture is not to parody history, but to deal with it.’178 Although his words suggest
a degree of disapproval with regards to the designs of the first generation of Post-
Modernists, Venturi’s work remains by all means significant; above all others it was he
who initiated the interest in architectural history, brought about the re-introduction of a
Architectural History in university curricula, and also inspired so many of the
architects who came after him.
178
Quoted in Forty, Words and Buildings, p. 205.
50
Illustrations
Fig. 1. Michelangelo, detail of the rear façade of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome 1546-64
Fig. 2. William Butterfield, entrance to All Saints, Margaret Street, London, 1849-59
51
Fig.3. Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, CT, 1948
Fig.4. Philip Johnson, Robert C. Wiley House, New Canaan, CT, 1952
52
Fig.5. Venturi’s illustration of a typical Main Street in the U.S.A
Fig.6. Robert Venturi, the Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, PA, 1962-64
53
Fig.7. Venturi, ground floor plan of the VVH, dated December 8, 1962
Fig.8. Louis I. Kahn, Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, PA, 1959-61
54
Fig.9. Venturi, rear elevation of the VVH, dated December 8, 1962
Fig.10. Ground floor stairs and living area, the VVH
55
Fig.11. The ‘nowhere stairs’, the VVH
Fig.12. Side view of the VVH
56
Fig.13. Entrance porch, the VVH
Fig.14. A void in the roof of the porch, the VVH
57
Fig.15. First floor bedroom, the VVH
Fig.16. The ‘nowhere stairs’, the VVH
58
Fig.17. McKim, Mead & White, W.G. Low House, Bristol, Rhode Island, 1886-87
(demolished in 1962)
Fig.18. Frank Lloyd Wright, entrance to Wright’s Home and Studio, Oak Park, Il,
1889
59
Fig.19. Interior of Vanna’s kitchen, the VVH
Fig.20. Ground floor dining area, the VVH.
60
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63
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Fig. 7 –Ground Floor Plan of the VVH published in F. Schwartz (ed.), Mother’s
House: the Evolution of Vanna Venturi’s House in Chestnut Hill (1992), p. 169.
Fig. 8 – Oono Yusuk’s image gallery ‘North America, East Coast’ in Flickr [accessed
02/04/2013] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/27245899@N07/3506818773/in/set-
72157617686753835).
Fig. 9 – Rear elevation of the VVH published in Schwartz (ed.), Mother’s House: the
Evolution of Vanna Venturi’s House in Chestnut Hill, p. 181.
Fig. 10 - Vladimir Paperny’s photography from Paperny’s ‘An Interview with Denise
Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’ [accessed 02/04/2013]
(http://www.paperny.com/venturi.html).
Fig. 11 – Jpmm’s image gallery ‘Architectuur’ in Flickr [accessed 03/04/2013]
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpmm/3204277744/in/set-72157594307305811).
Figs. 12-13 – the Vanna Venturi House in World Architecture Map [accessed
03/04/2013] (http://www.worldarchitecturemap.org/buildings/vanna-venturi-house).
Fig. 14 – the Vanna Venturi House in Marvel Building [accessed 03/04/2013]
(http://www.marvelbuilding.com/vanna-venturi-house.html/vanna-venturi-house-
interior2).
Fig. 15 – Vladimir Paperny’s photography from Paperny’s ‘An Interview with Denise
Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’ [accessed 02/04/2013]
(http://www.paperny.com/venturi.html).
Fig. 16 – the Vanna Venturi House in Stately Kitsch [accessed 03/04/2013]
(http://www.statelykitsch.com/category/architecture/mothers-house/).
Fig. 17 - W.G. Low House in Construction 53 [accessed 03/04/2013]
(http://www.construction53.com/2011/06/uniqueness-of-wood-light-frame-
construction/).
Fig. 18 – Dave William’s image gallery ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’ in Flickr [accessed
03/04/2013] (http://www.flickr.com/photos/38039613@N08/5754043657/).
64
Fig. 19 – the Vanna Venturi House in Stately Kitsch [accessed 03/04/2013]
(http://www.statelykitsch.com/category/architecture/mothers-house/).
Fig. 20 – the Vanna Venturi House in The Architect’s Newspaper [accessed
03/04/2013] (http://archpaper.com/uploads/vanna_venturi_house_03.jpg).
65

Robert Venturi S Complexity and Contradi

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The University of Edinburgh

Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) and the

Kristina Rimkute Professor

Part 1: Historical Examples in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture……..…7

Part 2: History’s role in the criticism of Modernism………………………………….16

Part 3: History, Complexity, and Complex Historical Context…………..…………..24

Part 4: History in the Vanna Venturi House…………..………………………………36

From Vittorio Gregotti,

Le territoire de l’architecture (1966), p. 871

attempt to restore the perception of architecture as complex, but also as something of a

Contradiction in Architecture (1966). In order to make his case, Venturi included in

designing of buildings is a practice of ‘accommodation’ rather than the simplistic

‘deduction’ of inherent complexities – a fact that was frequently ignored by the

Vincent Scully (1920- ), a professor of Architectural History at Yale University,

described in the ‘Introduction’ to Complexity and Contradiction (hereafter CCA) that

an exaggeration in 1966; retrospectively, however, one must give some credence to

one of the most respected contemporary American architectural critics – declared, in

architects who were increasingly conscious of the limitations of orthodox Modernist

complex and chaotic reality.9

irrelevant10 also fuelled a revival of eclectic mannerist tendencies in architecture, and

initiated a shift to neo-historicising Postmodernism in America.11 By the mid 1970s,

Such legendary structures as Michael Graves’ Portland Building in Oregon (1982),

disappointingly little interpretative work done on elucidating what Venturi actually

of this paper is to address this issue. My study is going to be defined by a critical

implementation of Venturi’s theory in practice. By analysing Venturi’s treatment of

historical architecture simply as pretext to validate his criticism of Modernist design

methods. Moreover, he is greatly concerned with architectural symbolism and

historical references which, he believes, communicate some sort of collective memory.

He promotes a simplistic approach to history, and, as a consequence, an artificial

complexity in the VVH. This approach, however, is rooted in contemporary scientific

One of Venturi’s most fundamental assumptions is that every architectural structure is

environment. From this follows his now well-known declaration:

I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture… I welcome the

The richness of this architecture also acknowledges such relationships as

‘circumstantial distortions’, ‘crowded intricacies’, ‘superadjacency’ and ‘inflection’, as

well as accommodating concepts of ‘both and’, ‘double functioning elements’ (or

characterised by multiple levels of meaning and their incorporation of compositional

inspired by Venturi’s time in Italy, it is unsurprising that images of historical Italian

Bernini, Francesco Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona – also receive a share of

Italian sources, as Venturi sees contradictions in architecture from much wider

geographical regions. The publication consequently includes illustrations of historical

buildings from England (such as those designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, John

Vanbrugh, John Soane, Edwin Lutyens), France (Jules Hardouin-Mansart),

contemporary Germany (Balthasar Neumann, Dominikus Zimmermann), Austria

collectively characterised by a playful attitude to previous styles.

then juxtapose what might appear to be completely unrelated buildings. In terms of

support of his claim that complexities are a universal feature of architecture.

Nevertheless, this position gives little historiographical validity to CCA, as Venturi

historical contexts. One of the many potential examples of this de-contextualisation is

Margaret Street in London (1849-1859). For instance, although Venturi frequently

(1546-1564): designed by Michelangelo, it is the ‘enormous rectangular openings in

‘contradictory contrast in scale’ (Fig.1).16 In terms of William Butterfield’s design for

great example of Venturi’s favoured concept of ‘contradiction juxtaposed’.18 It is clear

religious agendas lying behind these historical structures. Instead, he is primarily

designer/builder believed in has, however, been key element of architectural studies

since the early writings about the Pyramids.20

complexity can be intentionally created by the architect or conditioned by some of the

concept of ambiguity in most of the historical structures he discusses, the architect

that Venturi had an unusually good knowledge of architectural precedents. The

American architect graduated from Princeton University School of Architecture - a

of professor Jean Labatut (1899-1986). Labatut promoted a creative approach to

history by encouraging the study of great old architectural masterpieces regardless of