Non-Straightforward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto (1966)

“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. Instead, I speak of a complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern experience, including that experience which is inherent in art. Everywhere, except in architecture, complexity and contradiction have been acknowledged, from Gödel’s proof of ultimate inconsistency in mathematics to T.S. Elliot’s analysis of ‘difficult’ poetry and Joseph Albers’ definition of the paradoxical quality of painting.”

— Robert Venturi

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