Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture

book arrived on time and exactly as described. very happy!

THIS BOOK BECAME THE GURU BIBLE OF YOUNG GRADUATES OF PENN, ETC. VENTURI WAS ONE OF MY PROFESSORS 55 YEARS AGO!!!! .

Love this book! Venturi has an interesting and fairly extreme way of thinking and this book covers it all. The photos are beautiful on the glossy pages.

This book is less a manifesto than it is a very interesting look at how architecture has evolved over the last 2000 years. Venturi evocatively shows that there was no straight line approach to architecture, but rather an ever-changing and ambiguous path that Modernists chose to make short cuts through. In this sense, Venturi really does capture the complexity and contradiction in architecture in that there are many lessons to be learned, making this book as valuable today as it was in 1966 when it first appeared. Being one of the early "gray" architects, Venturi inspired a movement that eventually became characterized as "Post Modern." His early architectural work left a lot to be desired, since it seems less inspired by the many historical examples he favored, like Frank Furness , in this book and more by the banal trends in contemporary architecture at the time, eventually leading to Learning from Las Vegas (1972), where the concept of a building being a "duck," or a decorated shed, emerged. This book's most appealing aspect is that it is immediately accessible. You don't have to be an architect to understand where Venturi is coming from, much less a grad student working on a dissertation. Venturi avoids all that senseless jargon that characterized architectural theory at the time and later came to engulf Po-Mo talk as well.

Read it!

it was a gift to my sister for he birthday and she love it as per her feed back to me.

It was for daughter of my friend for school. She is satisfied. Thanks.

and full of contradictions

TB

A quintessential book in every architect's life.

important text - spawned a lot of vacuous ideas but has a kernel of significant analysis

The format, while great for images and its appreciation, makes it difficult for a comfort reading possition. Also, I believe while excellent ideas, Venturi doesn't always express himself in the most adecuate way.

Finally I got a new copy of one of my favorite books in architecture theory. I lost my old one and was really happy to find it on the book market. A really great book about the complex issues and sometimes contradictory matters in architecture.