Friday, May 6, 2016

Robert Venturi

Robert Venturi

Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adopted the motto "Less is more" to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity, functionality and minimalism. That approach related to the modernism movement.
In contrast to that vision, Architect Robert Venturi came up with his motto "Less is a bore", he criticized the modernism characteristic and suggest a new approach of Complex architecture.

It seems to me, that Robert Venturi felt that the idea of less is more is not suitable for people. People needed to be captured by the imagination that the post modernism was offering. Calling for more decoration, symbolism, color, pattern and clever references to historic structures. With the new technology it seemed that anything is possible, even the wildest and the complex.

His book "Learning from Las Vegas", is facing the Symbols of the visual, commercial and shiny architecture that concentrated in the city of gambling and entertainment in Las Vegas.
He presents the city as an expression of culture that can't be ignored and that you can learn from it.

In my opinion, Les Vegas represents the commercial message.
The gambling hall is always dark and has no windows. The perception of time and space of the guests distorted, there is no sense of time and space disappear. Time has no limits because there is no difference between day and night.

The modernism approach of "Less is more" describes minimalism, while the new approach of "Less is a bore" describes freedom of imagination. The example of Las Vegas, shows that the people has the possibility for imagination but they are not aware of the fact that they are being controlled.


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