Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. fut un architecte américain et le principal fondateur de Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, une figure majeure de la pensée architecturale du XXe siècle. Avec sa femme et partenaire, Denise Scott Brown, il a profondément façonné la manière dont les architectes, les urbanistes et les étudiants perçoivent et réfléchissent à l'architecture et à l'environnement bâti américain. Leurs bâtiments, projets d'urbanisme, écrits théoriques et enseignement ont élargi le discours sur l'architecture. Venturi est également reconnu pour avoir créé la maxime "Moins, c'est ennuyeux", un contrepoint postmoderne au célèbre adage moderniste de Mies van der Rohe "Moins, c'est plus".
This new collection of writings in a variety of genres argues for a genericarchitecture defined by iconography and electronics, an architecture whose elemental qualitiesbecome shelter and symbol.
First published in 1966, and since translated into 16 languages, this remarkable book has become an essential document in architectural literature. As Venturi's "gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture," Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion against the purism of modernism. Three hundred and fifty architectural photographs serve as historical comparisons and illuminate the author's ideas on creating and experiencing architecture. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was the winner of the Classic Book Award at the AIA's Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards.
Learning from Las Vegas created a healthy controversy on its appearance in 1972, calling for architects to be more receptive to the tastes and values of "common" people and less immodest in their erections of "heroic," self-aggrandizing monuments. This revision includes the full texts of Part I of the original, on the Las Vegas strip, and Part II, "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed," a generalization from the findings of the first part on symbolism in architecture and the iconography of urban sprawl. (The final part of the first edition, on the architectural work of the firm Venturi and Rauch, is not included in the revision.) The new paperback edition has a smaller format, fewer pictures, and a considerably lower price than the original. There are an added preface by Scott Brown and a bibliography of writings by the members of Venturi and Rauch and about the firm's work.
The book presents a pivotal argument that the architecture of Las Vegas, particularly its billboards and casinos, deserves critical attention, challenging traditional architectural norms. Initially released in 1972, it was designed by Muriel Cooper and became a modernist design icon, though the authors later deemed it too grand for their message. This facsimile edition revives the original large-format design, accompanied by a preface from Denise Scott Brown, reflecting on its creation and the authors' views on the design's monumental nature.
Robert Venturi gehört zu den Architekten, die die Debatte über die Ästhetik der Architektur durch Schriften und eigene Projekte wieder in Gang gebracht haben. Sein Buch ist ein Plädoyer zur Wiederaneignung des mannigfaltigen Reichtums der Baukunst, ein Damm gegen die Sintflut von Funktionalität und Purismus.