Contradiction In Architecture Essay

Venturi (1966) remarked on the inevitable multi-functionality of spaces and thus, the necessity of multi-meaning structure for their corresponding architectural forms in his famous book titled “complexity and contradiction in architecture”. He believes that the plurality of the meaning and the functions may enhance the intensity of spatial positive ambiguity and result in architectural spaces liveliness. Accordingly, he criticized the attitude of the modern architects who follow the modernism common maxim (form following function and so the belief in having just one meaning) in their works (e.g. The Seagram building designed by Mies van der Rohe). Mies’ Seagram has only one function and then has one meaning, Venturi said while, on the other hand, Mies had claimed that the flexibility is a necessity.

Mies believed that the functions have a shorter lifetime rather than the buildings constructed by man. Therefore, it makes the sense of exact flexibility and multi-functionality for the design (Mies van der Rohe in Broadbent, 1978). He also declared that we should not let the functions dictate the plan. Instead, it should provide us with the suitable situations to make each function applied (Mies van der Rohe in Heyer, 1993). Regarding Mies’ statements, which is contrary to Venturi’s interpretation, an architectural design should be done for multi-functionality, compatibility, and adaptability regardless of the usage subject or scale to satisfy different changes of human needs over the time. Based on this idea, the viewpoint of flexible design and the existence of multi-purpose spaces in a neutral and fix form in Mies’ architectural works could be obviously proved (Padovan, 2002). Hence, it could be claimed that his outstanding motto “less is more” is presented in order to achieve such