There was once a time, not so
terribly long ago, when architects had such a poor opinion of their clients,
customers and inhabitants that they believed only they — the sui generis
architect — knew what the future building dwellers needed and wanted. According
to Tom Wolfe in his monograph “From Bauhaus to Our House” a small and
eventually very powerful group of skillfully self-promoting architects of The International Style “policed the
impulses of clients and tenants alike.” Wolfe suggested that the “the terms
‘glass box’ and ‘repetition’ first uttered as terms of opprobrium became badges
of honor.”
As massive boring big box after big box
began to populate the country, the buildings were met with ringing applause like
that which greeted the debut of the emperor’s new clothes. Who would dare to
challenge The International Style
that had arrived from Europe and impregnated the country? Acceptance of
Grobius, van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Oud steadily grew amongst the
intelligentsia of urbane society cocktail circuits. The birth and nurturing of
this impregnation occurred within the University of Chicago, Harvard and
elsewhere outside the cloistered ivy walls, continuing essentially unchallenged
until Robert Venturi dared to do so in 1966 at the age of 41 by writing the now
classic book Complexity and Contradiction
in Architecture. Wolfe believed that “Venturi seemed to be saying it was
time to remove architecture from the elite world of the universities – from the
compounds – and make it more familiar, comfortable, cozy and appealing to
ordinary people; and to remove it from the level of thing and restore it to the
compromising and inconsistent but nevertheless rich terrain of real life.”
While Mies van der Rohe is credited
with coining the phrase “less is more” Venturi countered by saying that: “less
is a bore.”
According to Wolfe, “Not for a
moment did Venturi dispute the underlying assumptions of modern architecture:
namely, that it was to be for the people;
that it should be non-bourgeois and
has no applied decoration; that there
was historical inevitability to the
forms that should be used; and that the architect, from his vantage point
inside the compound would decide what was best for the people and what they
inevitably should have.” Yet Venturi led the way to a softening of the Teutonic
rigidity of the previous generation of architects. Through his writings,
Venturi demonstrated “an approach to understanding architectural composition
and complexity and the resulting richness and interest.” He explored and
celebrated the process of creating buildings that “typically juxtapose
architectural systems, elements and aims to acknowledge the conflicts often inherent
in a project or site.” This he referred to as “the difficult whole.” He articulated the grueling task of
integrating the old and the new without compromising either. He recognized that
good architecture is a conversation and not a series of disconnected
soliloquies.
“We are not free from the forms of the past, nor from the
availability of these forms as typological models, but that if we assume we are
free, we have lost control over a very active sector of our imagination and of
our power to communicate with others….” (Learning from Las Vegas)
(Robert Venturi and
his wife Denise Scott Brown – 1972)
Walking amongst a well-conceived
and well-bred collection of buildings is like experiencing a three dimensional
symphony. Each generation of building respects those that already existed.
Walking into an inchoate collection of buildings is jarring and dissonant,
unwelcoming and uncomfortable. It’s like a graffiti alley versus the Louvre. One
wants to flee. Venturi understood an “inclusive” approach in contrast to the rudely
egotistically deposited monolithic, non-contextual collections of glass and
steel boxes from the 30’s through the 60’s.
A building that is out of sync and
out of context in a protected national landmark historic block appears to be
begging for attention of any kind – like a branding iron - seemingly willing to
forgo adulation let alone respect. I
guess there are still people in the world who still follow the old adage: - “if you can’t be good at least be
memorable.”
Venturi wrote in the opening pages
of his book Complexity
and Contradiction in Architecture: -
“Architects can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral
language of orthodox Modern architecture. I like elements which are hybrid
rather than “pure,” compromising rather than “clean,” distorted rather than
“straightforward,” ambiguous rather than “articulated,” perverse as well as
impersonal, boring as well as “interesting,” conventional rather than “designed,”
accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as
well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I
am for messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non sequitur and
proclaim the duality.” Also: “But an
architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation toward
the whole: its truth must be in its totality or its implications of totality.
It must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of
exclusion. More is not less.”
Venturi and Scott Brown at Drexel
References
From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe, Washington Square
Press, 1981
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown on The Drexel InterView http://www.drexel.edu/univrel/digest/archive/112806/index.html
American Architecture Now
- 1984
Venturi and Brown interview Drexel 04 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjr98dKTzl8&feature=channel&list=UL
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture, by Robert Venturi, The Museum of Modern Art Papers on
Architecture. 1977
Learning from Las Vegas, by Robert
Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, the MIT Press, 1977
***
So now
the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession,
through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those
at the windows, cried out, "Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor's new
clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully
the scarf hangs!" in short, no one would allow that he could not see these
much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself
either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's
various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.
"But
the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child.
"Listen
to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his father; and what the child had
said was whispered from one to another.
"But
he has nothing at all on!" at last cried out all the people. The Emperor
was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the
procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains
than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no
train to hold.
1837
