Customer Reviews:
 still essential December 17, 2007
curt dilger (phila usa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"I like complexity and contradiction in architecture." That's how Robert Venturi starts this superb book. No great proclamation. It was an age tired of great proclamations. Instead, Venturi takes us through an impressively learned tour of his favorite things, a grand overview of great architecture, with acute formal analysis of facade and plan composition, sectional variety, and an accumulating realization that complexity is an inevitable force in the tumult of human, urban life.
Postmodernism has come and gone, but modernism looks as it does today because of this book.
 Venturi in its complexity July 17, 2005
RandMan (Auburn, AL)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
this book impacted the field of architecture during its time as much as LeCorbusier did with his book. Its extreme in its area of covering the world of architecture and how Venturi studies each theory on how the world of architecture has changed and is changing. Definately a must read for any architecture student or anyone associated in this long term field. the history of this book is more important than anything. Although alittle complex it is a must for those mentioned.
Still Relevant... January 30, 2005
d - b (SanFro, CA)
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
Now that the bottom of postmodernism has actually fallen out and is being dragged along the street by the chains of American capitalism, it's "alright" for students of architecture to return to that misjudged canonical textbook of post-modernism, C+C by Venturi. While not as engaging as his other main work "Learning from Las Vegas", this book still leads the reader into a meticulous analysis of the physical composition of major pieces of architecture, and the composition of the thoughts that made them. After reading it, I found myself unconciously applying it's main dichtomy of complexity and contradiction to much of the architecture around me, if that is any testament to its power.
Gateway towards looking at architecture June 24, 2004
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I had to read this book for a class specifically regarding Robert Venturi and the postmodernism movement that he became a leading proponent of. However, this book is NOT a manifesto for a postmodern vacabulary- rather, this book looks at all architecture from the Parthenon to the common family home. Let me say that I have read many architectural theory books, but nothing that really inspired me to look at a building and really see what the architect intended like Complexity and Contradiction. This book really focused my attention on the possibilities for great architecture on any level- from museum to treehouse. I feel that anyone with an interest in appreciating architecture should certainly read this book. Because of my studies of Robert Venturi and his contemporaries, I have pursued a degree in architecture and certainly plan to incorperate his ideas and philosophies into my work.
 the duck and the decorated shed March 24, 2000
8 out of 32 found this review helpful
venturi's book highlights the inherent complexity in today's post-modern society, coupled with the depth of comprehension often mistaken by critics. A must buy for Architecture students!
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