Complexity and Contradiction at Fifty

Complexity and Contradiction at Fifty
Robert Venturi (Vol. 1), Martino Stierli, David Brownlee (Vol. 2 Editors)
The Museum of Modern Art, July 2019



Hardcover w/slipcase | 6 x 8 inches | 144 pages (Vol. 1), 192 pages (Vol. 2) | 350 illustrations (Vol. 1), 75 illustrations (Vol. 2) | English | ISBN: 9781633450622 | $45.00

Publisher's Description:

Now available in its original edition along with critical commentary, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture is the founding text of postmodernism in architecture First published in 1966, Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, widely considered the foundational text of postmodernism, has become an essential document in architectural theory and criticism. This new two-volume boxed set presents a facsimile of the original edition paired with a compendium of new scholarship on and around Venturi’s seminal treatise.

The ten selected essays, a number of which were presented at a three-day international conference co-organized by MoMA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Complexity and Contradiction in 2016, address diverse issues, such as the book’s relationship to Venturi’s own built oeuvre and its significance in the contemporary landscape. Additional short commentaries by contemporary practitioners attest to Complexity’s enduring influence on architectural practice. Together, these two volumes expand the horizons of—and introduce a new generation to—Venturi’s “gentle manifesto.”

dDAB Commentary:

Back in November 2016, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the University of Pennsylvania together organized a three-day symposium on "the significance and enduring impact of [the] remarkable book" Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, published 50 years earlier by MoMA as the first in a series of "Papers on Architecture" (it was followed by only one book in the planned series). Actually, in the research assembled for the symposium and included in the second of two volumes in this handsome slipcase set, Robert Venturi's book didn't come out until spring 1967; its 1966 copyright has forever set that year as the year. That fact, though relatively minor, is one of many nuggets in the first half of the second volume, a section devoted to the book's context, which also encompasses, among other things, how the book came out of Venturi's teaching in the first half of the 1960s and the influences (including Denise Scott Brown) that contributed to the book. I must admit I really liked the in-depth analyses of things often overlooked, be it the book's acknowledgments or Venturi's coursework at the University of Pennsylvania. The second half of Volume 2 is devoted to a few interpretations; a standout is Dianne Harris's "Complexity and Complacency in Architecture," which calls out Venturi's book for being socially conservative at a time of great social upheaval, while reminding readers that our current situation calls for anything but complacency.

Which leaves Volume 1, a hardcover facsimile of the original paperback Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Like Learning from Las Vegas, by Venturi with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, the second version of Complexity and Contradiction is substantially different in format, meaning many people who buy this two-volume set might not recognize the book. The first edition is compact (6" x 8"), its 350 illustrations tiny in the margins. The second edition, on the other hand, is larger (8" x 11") with much larger images. The smaller, second version of Learning Las Vegas made that book affordable to students for the many classes it has subsequently been assigned to, while the larger Complexity and Contradiction reversed the frustration of stamp-sized photos (Peter Blake called them "impossible to decipher" in a 1967 review, quoted in Stanislaus von Moos's contribution to at Fifty) for students and others. For those, like myself, who have a first-edition copy of Venturi's book, the new facsimile is the equivalent of a trip to the dentist: the paper is whiter, the images brighter, the whole thing looks much better. For a book concerned with form and aesthetics, what could be better?

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Author Bio:

Martino Stierli is The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, a role he assumed in March 2015. David Brownlee is a historian of modern architecture whose interests embrace a wide range of subjects in Europe and America, from the late eighteenth century to the present.

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