INTRODUCTION

INT RODUCT ION

Robert Venturi’s design theory is all about architecture and modernism. Venturi's key points generally outlined in non-straight forward architecture: A general manifesto. Venturi also touches on the concept that richness can contrast with clarity and urges architects to leave the tenets of traditional modernism behind in pursuit of "truth in its totality", a sort of organic messiness that he perceives as more real and useful than overly planned hyper logical modernist constructions.

"Complexity and contradiction versus simplification or picturesqueness" criticizes "orthodox modern architects" and their treatment of complexity eventually feels that diversity in architecture represents a type of sophistication. Simplicity doesn't always work because it often results in an architectural "blandness”, "less is bore".

"Both-and" architecture promotes hierarchy within it, which leads to contrast layers and levels of meanings. Venturi encourages architects you consider how they can use principles of standardization in a nonstandard way. Finally, we reached the obligation towards the difficult whole. Venturi believes that variety in the cityscape and individual buildings creates certain type of tension that not only promotes many levels of interpretation but also forms a sophisticated unity. Ambiguity and tension are easily found in complex and contradictory architecture. Architecture is a form and substance - abstract and concrete its meaning is from the interior characteristics and its popular context. An architectural element is perceived as form and structure, texture and material. These oscillating relationships, complete and contradictory are the source of the ambiguity and tension characteristic to the medium of architecture.

It seems that many of Venturi's principles work effectively in a graphic design contest: variety, inclusion and tensions are all key components to compelling works. We can also think about our design work as individual entities as also as well as parts of a whole by considering how they fit in with both contemporary and historical examples of graphic design. Certainly, his ideas of proposing historical / traditional elements also applies to graphic design postmodernism would not exist without this concept. In 1962, Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture under a grant from the Graham Foundation. It was re-published by the Museum of Modern Art (New York) in 2002 as part of a series of occasional papers on the theoretical background of modern architecture. The re-publication of the book was not to accompany a museum exhibition, rather its purpose was to recognise the importance of Complexity and Contradiction as a critical and historical expression of a turning point in modern architectural history. The book is a about architecture beyond modernism. By the middle of the twentieth century, some began to see modernism as a languishing system. Its simplicity, modularity and internationalism were becoming stale, and functional flaws were starting to show. Modernism’s fall from grace led architects in America and across Europe to reconsider the programmes and systems they employed. One such architect was Robert Venturi.

In 1962, Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture under a grant from the Graham Foundation. It was re-published by the Museum of Modern Art (New York) in 2002 as part of a series of occasional papers on the theoretical background of modern architecture. The re-publication of the book was not to accompany a museum exhibition, rather its purpose was to recognise the importance of Complexity and Contradiction as a critical and historical expression of a turning point in modern architectural history.

The book targets the limitations of modern orthodox architecture and city planning, as well as architects who Venturi considers to be “platitudinous”. He criticises the idealisation of the primitive and elementary, in addition to the favouring of simplicity over diversity. Venturi advocates instead an approach to architecture in which truth is derived from paradoxes and complexity, damning the maxim “less is more” and claiming that forced simplicity results in oversimplification. Venturi believes that simplification is intrinsically boring. He argues that true simplicity — i.e. one which is not from being economical with materials or using repeated modular forms, but from cognitive satisfaction — is achieved through an inner complexity. The example of the Doric temple is Venturi’s justification for this claim, suggesting that through distorted geometry and internal tension (complexities and contradictions) the temple as a whole evokes harmonious simplicity.

Venturi's buildings typically juxtapose architectural systems, elements and aims, to acknowledge the conflicts often inherent in a project or site. This "inclusive" approach contrasted with the typical modernist effort to resolve and unify all factors in a complete and rigidly structured—and possibly less functional and more simplistic—work of art. Venturi's architecture has had worldwide influence, beginning in the late 1960s with the dissemination of the broken-gable roof of the Vanna Venturi House and the segmentally arched window and interrupted string courses of Guild House. The playful variations on vernacular house types offered a new way to embrace, but transform, familiar forms.