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not an easy book

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At the scale of furniture, the prevalent sense of the equivocal is expressed in the chair illustrated. Its back configuration is curving and is front is rectangular. It is not dissimilar in its difficult composition to Aalto's bentwood chair illustrated. Inherent in an architecture of opposites is the inclusive whole.
Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), p. 101.

Inherent in an architecture of opposites is the inclusive whole. The unity of the interior of the Imatra church or the complex at Wolfsburg is achieved not through suppression or exclusion but through the dramatic inclusion of contradictory or circumstantial parts. Aalto's architecture acknowledges the difficult and subtle conditions of program, while "serene" architecture, on the other hand, works simplifications.
Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), p.101.

However, the obligation toward the whole in an architecture of complexity and contradiction does not preclude the building which is unresolved. Poets and playwrights acknowledge dilemmas without solutions. The validity of the questions and vividness of the meaning are what make their works art more than philosophy. A goal of poetry can be unity of expression over resolution of content. Contemporary sculpture is often fragmentary, and today we appreciate Michelangelo's unfinished Pietās more than his early work, because their content is suggested, their expression more immediate, and their forms are completed beyond themselves. A building can also be more or less incomplete in the expression of its program and its form.
Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966), p. 101.

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