50th Anniversary of Robert Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture"

The Museum of Modern Art and the University of Pennsylvania will mark the 50th anniversary of Robert Venturi's "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" with a three-day symposium in November.

Cover of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture published by The Museum of Modern Art

To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Robert Venturi’s "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" (1966), Martino Stierli, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, and David Brownlee, the Shapiro-Weitzenhoffer Professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, are organizing a three-day symposium on November 10, 11, and 12, 2016, bringing together international scholars and architects to discuss the significance and enduring impact of this remarkable book, published by The Museum of Modern Art 50 years ago, in association with the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in The Fine Arts.

The symposium is co-organized by The Museum of Modern Art and the University of Pennsylvania, and will be held in both New York and Philadelphia. Programs on November 10 and 11 will take place at The Museum of Modern Art, while programs on November 12 will be held at both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. A conversation with Denise Scott Brown, Venturi’s longtime partner and collaborator, will close the symposium.

It is generally agreed that Complexity and Contradiction, described by its author as a “gentle manifesto,” has lived up to the prediction made by Vinc ent Scully in the book’s preface: that it would be the most important architectural text written since Le Corbusier’s 1923 manifesto Vers une architecture. Venturi's book is conventionally interpreted as a potent early expression of post modernism not only as that term applies to architecture, but in the culture at large, as its very title became a popular description of the post modern condition. The book’s argument, however, is not in all ways congruent with what has come to be regarded as post-modern thinking, and its relationship to this phenomenon invites rigorous analysis. Conference speakers will locate the book in the intellectual and cultural context of its time, exploring its relationship to the diversity of thinking that may be labeled post modern while also identifying its connections to other (and contradictory) intellectual tendencies. A more nuanced understanding of the work will contribute to contemporary discussions of modernism in architecture and throughout our culture.

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was based in large part on materials Venturi assembled for the lecture course he taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1961 to 1965, on which he collaborated, in part, with Denise Scott Brown, his future partner and wife. The manuscript was selected by Arthur Drexler, then the director of the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, to inaugurate an intended series of texts on modern architectural theory. With Venturi and Scott Brown’s archive now housed at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, MoMA and Penn are the fitting sponsors for the symposium.

The conference will open on November 10 with a panel discussion of practicing architects from around the world, moderated by David De Long, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania. The panelists will be Kersten Geers, Sam Jacob, Momoyo Kaijima, Michael Meredith, Stephen Kieran, and James Timberlake. Over the next two days, three sessions will explore the themes “Post Modernism,” “Creative Contexts,” and “Making the Book,” with papers presented by Lee Ann Custer, Deborah Fausch, Christine Gorby, Andrew Leach, Mary McLeod, Joan Ockman, Emmanuel Petit, Martino Stierli, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Stanislaus von Moos, and Enrique Walker. David Brownlee, Alice Friedman of Wellesley College, and Kathryn Hiesinger of the Philadelphia Museum of Art will moderate these sessions. Following the third session, a bus excursion will enable participants to visit key works of architecture by Venturi and Scott Brown and other members of the so-called Philadelphia School of the 1960s.

The conference will close at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania with an exhibition viewing, a reception, and a rare conversation with Denise Scott Brown. On view will be the exhibition Back Matter: The Making of Robert Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, organized in conjunction with the conference by William Whitaker, Curator and Collections Manager of the Architectural Archives, and Lee Ann Custer. The exhibition (on view October 28, 2016 – January 13, 2017 ) will display original materials from the Venturi and Scott Brown archive, highlighting Venturi’s teaching at Penn, the production of the manuscript and book, and Venturi’s contemporaneous architectural design work. Whitaker will engage Scott Brown in a discussion about the book’s making, context, and consequences. A reception will follow and close the conference.

The symposium will be free and open to the public, with the exception of the bus tour, for which a limited number of tickets will be sold, and the closing reception and conversation with Denise Scott Brown, for which seating is limited. The full schedule, including details about purchasing tickets for the bus tour and registering for the reception, will be available at both MoMA’s website (moma.org) and Penn’s website (sas.upenn.edu/arthistory/events/complexit y-and-contradiction-fifty).

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE :
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10
Architects’ Roundtable
6:3 0 – 8:00 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Art
Celeste Bartos Theater
David De Long, University of Pennsylvania ( m oderator ) Kersten Geers, O ffice K ersten Geers David Van Severen , Brussels Sam Jacob, Sam Jacob Studio , London
Momoyo Kaijima, Atelier Bow - Wow, Tokyo
Stephen Kieran , KieranTimberlake, Philadelphia James Timberlake, KieranTimberlake , Philadelphia Mi chael Meredith, MOS Architects , New York

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11
Session 1: Post Modernism
10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Art
Celeste Bartos Theater
David Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania (moderator)
Stanislaus von Moos, University of Zurich
Joan Ockman, University of Pennsylvania
Andrew Leach, University of Sydney
Emmanuel Petit, Yale University
Session 2: Creative Contexts
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Art
Celeste Bartos Theater
Alice Friedman, Wellesley College (moderator)
Martino Stierli, The Museum of Modern Art
Mary McLeod, Columbia University
Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Baukuh, Milan and editor of “San Rocco”

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12
Session 3: Making the Book
10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Van Pelt Auditorium
Kathryn Hiesinger, Philadelphia Museum of Art (moderator)
Lee Ann Custer, University of Pennsylvania
Christine Gorby, Pennsylvania State University
Deborah Fausch, independent scholar
Enrique Walker, Columbia University
Bus tour: The Philadelphia School
1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
With commentary by Alice Friedman, Wellesley College
Conversation with Denise Scott Brown, exhibition viewing, and closing reception
4:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
Harvey & Irwin Kroiz Gallery

Venue locations.-
The Museum of Modern Art
Celeste Bartos Theater
Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West 54 Street
New York, NY 10019

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Van Pelt Auditorium
2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130

The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
Harvey & Irwin Kroiz Gallery
220 South 34 Street at Smith Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104

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Charles Robert Venturi

Charles Robert Venturi, Jr. (born June 25th, 1925) is an American architect, principal founder of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the leading figures of twentieth century architecture. Along with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped shape the way architects, planners and students experience and think about architecture and the american built environment. Its buildings, urban planning, theoretical and didactic writings have also contributed to the expansion of the discourse on architecture. He wrote in 1972 in collaboration with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour "Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form", one of the most influential books on architecture in the second half of the twentieth century.

Venturi was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1991; the prize was awarded to him alone, despite a request to include his partner Denise Scott Brown. Fifteen years later, both jointly were awarded the AIA Gold Medal 2016, the most important architecture prize in the US. Venturi is also known for coining the slogan "Less is a bore", a post-modern antidote to the famous modernist Mies van der Rohe sentence "Less is more". He reached prestige when in the 1960s he began criticizing the orthodoxy of the modern movement, which led to the postmodernism of the 1970s His cause advocated a complex architecture and accepted its contradictions. He rejected the austerity of the modern movement and encouraged the return of historicism, added decoration and of a resounding symbolism in architectural design.

Denise Scott Brown

Denise Scott Brown, (born as Denise Lakofski) (Nkana, Rhodesia, October 3rd 1931) is a postmodern architect, urbanist, writer and teacher. Expert in urban and educational planning at universities such as Berkeley, Yale and Harvard, she wrote in 1972 in collaboration with Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour Learning from Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolism of architectural form, one of the most influential books in architecture in the second half of the twentieth century. It is considered the most famous woman architect of the second half of the twentieth century. She married Robert Venturi in 1967 and they have worked together since 1969, but in 1991 she was excluded from the Pritzker Prize prompting protests and debates about the difficulties of women architects to be recognized in their profession. Finally, they were awarded jointly with the AIA Gold Medal 2016 becoming the second woman in history to win the most prestigious award in the world of architecture and the first living woman to receive this galardón. She is a member of the architectural Studio Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates of Philadelphia (USA), which in 2012, following the retirement of Venturi, became VSBA Architects & Planners.

Published on: September 23, 2016

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