history | not an easy book |
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If "contradiction adapted" corresponds to the kid glove treatment, "contradiction juxtaposed" involves the shock treatment. The Villa Pignatelli adapts variations, but the Villa Palomba juxtaposes contrasts: its contradictory relationships become manifest in discordant rhythms, directions, adjacencies, and especially in what I shall call superadjacencies--the superimpositions of various elements.
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Le Corbusier supplies a rare modern example of juxtaposed contradictions in the Millowners' Building in Ahmedabad. From the important approach from the south, the repetitive pattern of the brise-soleil invokes rhythms which are violently broken by the entrance void, the ramp, and the stairs. These latter elements, consisting of varying diagonals, create violent adjacencies from the side and violent superadjacencies from the front, in relation to the rectangular static floor divisions within the boxlike form. The juxtapositions of diagonals and perpendiculars also create contradictory directions: the meeting of the ramp and stairs is only slightly softened by the exceptionally large void and by the modified rhythm of the elements at that part of the facade. But these contradictions in the visual experience are even richer when you move closer and penetrate the building. The adjacencies and superadjacencies of contrasting scales, directions, and functions can make it seem like a miniature example of Kahn's viaduct architecture.
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In Le Corbusier's Palace of the Two Assemblies at Chandigarh the conical assembly hall jammed into the rectangular grid represents a more three-dimensional superadjacency of a very violent kind.
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