Venturi- Mother’s house

【Summary】

This book is a review of architecture by the author. At the same time, we can also explain the author’s works through these words.

Venturi believes that rich meaning and clear functions are more needed in architecture. He believes that a good building needs not only complex meanings and combinations but also interesting and practical architectural elements. He opposed Mies van der Rohe’s less is more, but proposed less is bore.

In this book, he specifically expresses his views through these four aspects – the complexity of architecture, contradiction, the importance of traditional elements, irrational and inharmonious formal beauty, to explain his view which is we should accept contradictions, adapt contradictions, and reasonably adapt inherent contradictions to the overall architecture. He hopes to present a dialectical, pluralistic, meaningful, and complex way of thinking about architecture.

【Background】

This book was published in 1966 and is regarded as the Manifesto of postmodern architecture.

His most famous representative building is the house he built for his mother, which was established in 1961.

His career became famous from 1961 until 1996.

【Comparison】

I think the ideas formed by Venturi in his career are almost the same as those expressed in words.

In his career, he thought “less is bore”, which was also put forward in the previous chapters of the book.

In general, I think his architectural views can be summarized into three aspects.

decorative and memorial

symbolic and metaphorical

the integration of architecture and environment

He often uses simple geometric figures to make the buildings he designs look abstract, but have both practical functions and rich and interesting spaces.

As he said in his book, “I accept contradiction and complexity to make the building real, effective and full of vitality.”

His architecture is also trying to express his views.

Like the house, he built for his mother——

It looks like a simple house with simple strokes, but the details are unpredictable.

The contradiction of architecture he said can be reflected everywhere in this building.

For example, from the window of the facade. The building is skillfully asymmetric with the windows on the left and right sides, but it forms a dynamic balance because of the same area. While breaking the order, a new balance was established.

What’s more, a folding wall is set at the entrance, and the arc wall next to the lobby complies with the changes brought by the folding wall. The position of the folding wall is corrected at the windowsill to form a triangular bay window, which forms an interesting stair space with the surplus step width.

It seems that “wrong symbols” and “chaotic appearance” have transformed these contradictions into a kind of tension. He is trying to make the space interesting. These tensions have brought great vitality to the interior and met the use needs of the space at the same time.

As in the last chapter of the book, Venturi made a specific analysis of several of his projects, which not only let the readers integrate theory with practice, but also his summary and combing.