Less is a bore

30 June 2008

Robert Venturi is sometimes called a “post-modern” architect, a label he dislikes. But his manifesto from 1977 serves as a nice challenge to the “orthodoxy” of modernism and feels very relevant to contemporary graphic design.

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. …

I like elements which are hybrid rather than “pure,” compromising rather than “clean,” distorted rather than “straightfoward,” 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.

The doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justifies exclusion for expressive purposes. It does, indeed, permit the architect to be highly selectiv in determining which problems he wants to solve. … Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore.

— Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture