Postmodern Architect

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Postmodern Architect

• Robert Venturi

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Robert Venturi (b.1925)

• Background
• Major Theoretical Works
• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
• Learning from Las Vegas
• Selected Design Works

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Robert Venturi (b.1925)

• Architects
• Theorists
• Teachers
• Award Winner

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Bibliography

• 1947 graduated (summa cum laude) from Princeton
  University
• 1950 M.F.A. from Princeton University
• 1954 to 1956 furthered his studies as a Rome
  Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome
• Taught an architectural theory course at the
  University of Pennsylvania, School of
  Architecture.
• In the past three decades lectured at numerous
  institutions including Yale, Princeton, Harvard,
  UCLA, Rice and the American Academy in Rome. 
• 1991 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate
• Practices architecture under the name of Venturi,
  Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA)
• Always calls himself a Modernist

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Venturis Books

• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
  (1966)
• Explores physical reactions to forms and is
  understanding in methods
• Learning from Las Vegas (1972)
• Is concerned with the function of sign in human
  art (buildings) and is fundamentally linguistic
  in its approach
• A View from the Campidoglio Selected Essays,
  1953-1984.  (1984)
• Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic
  Architecture (1996)

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Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

• Inspired Postmodern Architecture
• An early (if not first) attempt of Anti-Modernism
  
• Ironic (More is Not Less and Less is Bore)
• Examples from the Past (Mannerism, Baroque,
  Rococo) against modernists buildings
• Polemic theory of architecture vs. normative
  theory of architecture

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Vincent Scully compared Venturi with Le
Corbusier

• Le Corbusier
• Inspired by Greek Temple
• Sculptural form
• Actively heroic character
• Sculptural actors in vast landscape

• Venturi
• Inspired by the urban façade of Italy
• Endless adjustments to the counter-requirements
  of inside and outside
• Inflection with all the business of everyday life
• Complex spatial containers and definers of
  streets and squares
• Accommodation

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Corbus and Venturis Approach
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Scully described Venturis Proposal

• Recognize complexity
• Respect what exists
• Against purism
• Humanistic

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Architecture and History

• Making and experience of architecture
• Are always critical historical acts (involving
  what architects and the viewers have learned)
• Depend upon the quality of our historical
  knowledge

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Venturi's Standpoint (in Preface to Complexity
and Contradiction Architecture)

• Ideas on architecture are a by product of the
  criticism, (which accompanies working)
• Analysis and Comparison gt tools for criticism
• Architecture is open to analysis like any other
  aspects of experience
• Analysis gt breaking up architecture into
  elements
• Comparison gt making architecture more vivid
• Try to be guided not by habit but by a conscious
  sense of the past--by precedent, thoughtfully
  considered
• Examples are from Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo
• What he likes in architecture complexity and
  contradiction

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Venturis Intentions or excuses in Complexity
and Contradiction in Architecture

• To be suggestive (??????) rather than dogmatic
  (???????)
• Method of historical analogy can be taken only so
  far in architectural criticism
• Should an artist go all the way with his or her
  philosophies?

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A Gentle Manifesto

• I like complexity and contradiction in
  architecture
• I do not like the incoherence or arbitrariness
  of incompetent architecture nor the precious
  intricacies of picturesqueness or expressionism
• Richness and ambiguity of modern experience
• A valid architecture evokes many levels of
  meaning and combinations of focus its space and
  its elements become readable and workable in
  several ways at once
• Must embody the difficult unity of inclusion
  rather than the easy unity of exclusion (more is
  not less)

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Rather than/ Preferto (opposite meaning words)

• pure
• clean
• straightforward
• articulated
• designed
• excluding
• simple

• hybrid ..
• compromising
• distorted ..
• ambiguous .
• conventional ..
• accommodating .
• redundant

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Rather than/ Preferto (opposite meaning words)

• inconsistent and equivocal
• messy vitality
• richness of meaning
• both-and
• black, white and grey ..
• implicit function

• direct and clear
• obvious unity
• clarity of meaning
• either-or
• black and white
• explicit function

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as well as (equal but different meaning words)

• contradictory
• Impersonal
• interesting
• innovating

• complex
• perverse
• (????????????????)
• boring
• vestigial .
• (?????????)

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Complexity and Contradiction vs. Simplification
or Picturesqueness
Selective

• Less is More disregards complexity and justify
  exclusion for expressive purpose
• Permit the architect to be highly selective in
  determining which problem he wants to solve
• Resulted in oversimplification

Complexity
Oversimplification
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Ambiguity

• Complexity of meaning causes ambiguity and
  tension
• Juxtaposition and duality cause ambiguity
• Plural interpretation
• Planned incongruity
• Elements of paradox and ambiguity

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Ambiguity
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Contradictory Levels Both-And in Architecture

• Simple outside yet complex inside
• Close yet open
• Duality yet unity
• Allow hierarchy several level of meanings
• Double meanings over double functions

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Both-And
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The Inside and the Outside

• Contrast between the inside and the outside can
  be a major manifestation of contradiction in
  architecture
• Space in space, things within things
• Contradiction between the inside and outside may
  manifest itself in an unattached lining which
  produces an additional space between the lining
  and the exterior wall

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Inside and Outside
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Inside and Outside (façade)
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The Obligation Towards the Difficult Whole

• The whole is more than the sum of its parts
  (Gestalt psychology)
• It is the difficult unity through inclusion
  rather than the easy unity through exclusion
• The degree of wholeness can vary
• Parts can be more or less whole in themselves

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Difficult Whole
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Learning From Las Vegas

• Analysis of contradictory and messy existing
  environments
• Application of (critical and analytical) theories
  into architecture

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Background

• The lost of symbolism in architecture (the use of
  icons, symbols, or inscriptions on architecture)
• Modernists use art or icons (painting or
  sculpture) not on architecture but near
  architecture or in space
• A design research project for students at Yale

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Contents

• Study Part Analysis of the commercial strip of
  Las Vegas
• Implication Part Generalizing and theorizing
  into symbolism in architecture

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The Commercial Strip
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Learning From Las Vegas (Analysis)

• Objectively analyze the commercial strips of Las
  Vegas as a phenomenon of architectural
  communication (without discussion of values)
• Revolutionary for architects
• To question how we look at things
• Architects always look judgmentally at the
  environment, dissatisfied with existing
  conditions and want to change rather than try to
  enhance what is there
• We look back at history to go forward, and look
  down at ordinary environment to go up

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Las Vegas
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Analysis Learning From Las Vegas

• Analysis of signs, symbols and buildings in
  relation to their size, distance and speed of
  movement
• Use example of icon (painting, sculpture, or
  inscription) in historic building to support the
  use of sign and symbol on commercial building

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Analysis
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Analysis
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Analysis
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Analysis
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View Inside a Car
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Analysis
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Implication Learning From Las Vegas

• Architecture depends (in its perception and
  creation) on past experience and emotional
  association
• These symbolic and representational elements may
  often be contradictory to the form, structure and
  program

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Duck and Decorated Shed

• The Duck systems of space, structure and program
  are submerged and distorted by an overall
  symbolic form (the special building that is a
  symbol)
• The Decorated Shed systems of space and
  structure follow program, and ornament is applied
  independently of them (the conventional shelter
  that applies symbol)

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The Duck
systems of space, structure and program are
submerged and distorted by an overall symbolic
form
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The Decorated Shed
systems of space and structure follow program,
and ornament is applied independently
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Example Guild House and Crawford Manor
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Comparison

• Guild House
• Ugly and ordinary
• Architecture of meaning
• Symbolism
• Symbolic ornament
• Mixed media
• Decoration by attaching ornaments

• Crawford Manner
• Heroic and original
• Architecture of expression
• Abstraction
• Expressive ornament
• Pure architecture
• Unadmitted decoration by articulation of integral
  elements

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Heroic and Original

• Contrast between program and image
• The program of Crawford Manor is ordinary but the
  image is heroic and original
• Impoverished itself by rejecting denotative
  ornament and the rich tradition of iconography in
  historical architecture while expressing
  architectural elements themselves

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Ugly and Ordinary

• Ugly, ordinary and looks it
• The windows look familiar they look like, as
  well as are, windows
• When used slightly unconventionally, they become
  unfamiliar (like Pop Art)

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Guild House
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Pop Art
Andy Warhol
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Modern Architecture

• Expression has become a dry expressionism, empty
  and boringand in the end irresponsible.
• Reject explicit symbolism and ornament, distort
  the whole building into one big ornament and
  become a duck

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Architecture as Symbolism
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Examples of Architectural DesignVenturi, Scott
Brown and Associates
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Mothers House (1964)
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Fire Station No. 4 (1968)
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Franklin Court (1976)
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Best Showroom (1978)
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House in Delaware (1980)
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Gordon Wu Hall (1983)
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Seattle Art Museum (1991)
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Penn Clinical Research (1991)
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Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery (1991)
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Comparison Venturi and Moore(both apply
historic elementsthe grey)

• Venturi
• Emphasize message
• Symbol in the environment
• View from outside
• Ambiguity
• More superficial
• Use historic elements unconventionally

• Moore
• Emphasize body sense
• Body experience extended
• View (feel) from within
• Dramatic
• More philosophical
• Use unconventional elements to achieve historic
  memory

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Architecture as
Venturi Symbol
Moore Experience
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Further Information

• Venturi, Scott-Brown and Associates website
  http//www.vsba.com
• Lots of information and pictures
• Cool website