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Text, lies and architecture: Colin Rowe,

Robert Venturi and Mannerism
a
Denise Costanzo
a
The Pennsylvania State University , University Park , PA , 16802 , USA
Published online: 22 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Denise Costanzo (2013) Text, lies and architecture: Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi and
Mannerism, The Journal of Architecture, 18:4, 455-473, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2013.816202

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Text, lies and architecture:

Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi
and Mannerism
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Denise Costanzo The Pennsylvania State University, University Park,

PA 16802, USA
Email: drc150@psu.edu

Colin Rowe’s few published statements about Robert Venturi from 1967–76 convey a dis-
tance reinforced by their frequent association with two opposing architectural camps
during this period (the ‘Whites’ and the ‘Grays’). Yet their interests and priorities overlapped
to a remarkable extent; both applied the lessons of architectural history to contemporary
design and shared intense interests in early modern Italian architectural traditions.
Perhaps most unusually, both consistently asserted the relevance of Mannerism to
modern architecture.
In retrospect, it appears curious that Rowe and Venturi were not allies, and seldom (if at all)
acknowledged their many parallels and intersections: a lacuna mirrored in scholarship, which
rarely considers them as a pair. However, Rowe’s three direct discussions of Venturi during
this period, all of which mention Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, its impact
and its manifestation in Venturi’s design work, provide insights into their distinct but
related approaches to Mannerism, history and architectural authorship. They also suggest
why these seemingly natural allies kept each other at arms’ length, despite their tightly inter-
twined interests. The parallels and divergences in their writing invite a consideration of the
means and ends of presenting architectural history to an architectural audience, and how his-
torians learn from architects.

Introduction Robert Venturi have, to some extent, illuminated

Today the art historical discussion of Mannerism the situation. Nevertheless, while Venturi has
has achieved levels of sophistication and detach- been quite unabashed in his parade of elements
ment which c. 1950 were simply not available; of Mannerist origin and while, by these means,
but, on the other hand, it is not evident that the he has extended the theater of architectural dis-
modern architect’s consciousness of sixteenth course, the theme modern architecture and Man-
century themes has been considerably advanced. nerism still awaits the extended and positive
There are still two bodies of information—the interpretation which it deserves.1
one art historical, the other modern architectural This passage from Colin Rowe’s 1976 introduction
—and the possibilities of their convergence in a to his 1950 essay on ‘Mannerism and Modern Archi-
work of rational exegesis still remain remote. tecture’ asserts a schism dividing scholarly and crea-
Since the writing of this article the initiatives of tive understandings of architectural history. It also

# 2013 The Journal of Architecture 1360-2365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2013.816202

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Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi
and Mannerism
Denise Costanzo
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provides Rowe’s earliest, and lengthiest, acknowl- the promotion of ‘opticality (“retinal intelligence”),
edgement that he and Venturi shared an interest frontality, and structured ambiguity’; and an ulti-
in this pairing of subjects. Although Rowe admits mate acceptance of ‘heterogeneities and ad hoc cir-
that the Philadelphia architect had increased Man- cumstances rather than idealities and large-scale
nerism’s visibility, he believes Venturi had not furth- systems’.5
ered any substantive consideration of its relationship This is not to discount the many substantive differ-
to contemporary practice. Rowe was more ambiva- ences in their positions on issues such as symbolism,
lent in his 1967 double book review of Complexity the vernacular and context. Yet their commonalities
and Contradiction in Architecture and Reyner are also numerous: persistent faith in the relevance
Banham’s The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?.2 of history, particularly early modern Italy, to the
There he dismisses Venturi’s ‘gentle manifesto’ as twentieth century; a then-rare respect for nine-
a glorified picture book presenting the author’s per- teenth-century eclecticism; reliance on insightful
sonal (if ‘enlightened’) taste and found its emphasis visual analysis of built works; startling leaps
on subjective perceptions of form diminished the between eras in their writings; even evocations of
book’s potential efficacy: ‘Had Venturi’s sensibility T.S. Eliot and Clement Greenberg.6
resulted in more than a collection of stimulating Another intersection is their linkage of Mannerism
visual insights, entrenched establishments would to modern architecture. Rowe observed in 1967 that
be more seriously threatened than they will be.’3 Venturi presents his compositional principles
Rowe may have wished Venturi’s book were a through ‘a catalogue of Mannerist motifs’ and
more pointed weapon, because it echoed his own exaggerates that ‘most’ of his exempla date from
priorities. In 1996 Rowe declared that he and the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.7 As was
Venturi ‘had achieved almost a marriage of the immediately recognised and has since been
minds’ in the late 1960s.4 Many passages from re-confirmed, Mannerism is essential to the book’s
Joan Ockman’s overview of Rowe’s career, which conceptual and aesthetic framework.8 Venturi writes
contains only two direct references to Venturi, that literary critics have not only identified a Mannerist
could easily describe either figure: ‘his fundamental historical period, ‘but unlike most architecture critics,
ambivalence about modernism, his perambulation they also acknowledge a “mannerist strain” across
of different cultures (British, American, Italian), his time’; some see ‘contradiction, paradox and ambigu-
perversely eclectic tastes’; the belief that in ‘the ity as basic to the medium of poetry, just as Albers
arena of “enlightened pluralism”, there was no does with painting’.9 He believed that these ‘manner-
longer any reason to prefer Adolf Loos to Lutyens, ist’ qualities were as essential to architecture as they
or a tubular steel chair to one by Robert Adam’; are to literature or art, a position he and Denise
convictions about ‘the failure of the utopian Scott Brown have maintained for decades.10
project of modernism’ and the ‘inevitability of his- Rowe perceived Mannerism’s centrality to Com-
torical precedent as a source of formal invention’; plexity and Contradiction, but his 1967 review
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never hints that he was himself an obvious exception Peter Eisenman’s 1963 Cambridge dissertation
to Venturi’s statement about ‘most architecture also considered Mannerism’s effects on new archi-
critics’, having paired Mannerism and modernism tecture. Rowe was among Eisenman’s mentors
seventeen years earlier. Knowing that he did, we during his doctoral studies (including a personal
might expect Rowe to find Venturi’s position study tour of Palladio’s villas), so his citation of ‘Man-
indebted to, or an independent vindication of, nerism and Modern Architecture’ is expected.17
or—at the very least—a fascinatingly coincidental Eisenman’s negativity is not: ‘architecture seems to
echo of his 1950 essay.11 Decades later, Rowe have taken refuge in mannerism and the cult of
observed that his article ‘had used almost the same self expression in a compulsive emphasis on the
language which Venturi himself used in Complexity isolated creation without regard to a total order’.18
and Contradiction in Architecture’.12 It is curious He finds formal (not historical) ‘mannerism’ too
that such an astute critic did not immediately individualistic and subjective to undergird design.
comment on these similarities with his own work. In contrast, Complexity and Contradiction offers a
Rowe’s silence might reflect the changed aware- resolutely positive presentation of Mannerism as
ness of Mannerism since his article appeared in both period and compositional strategy; Venturi
1950. In 1943, Nikolaus Pevsner noted that ‘the labels every architect whose work he admires a
application of the principles of Mannerism to ‘mannerist’.19 Given the rarity of appreciations of
architecture is still relatively recent and still contro- Mannerism’s relationship to contemporary architec-
versial.’13 This category, born of early twentieth- ture in the 1960s, we might expect Rowe to view
century analyses of cinquecento painting, remained any fellow enthusiast as an ally. Despite a 1996
obscure in 1950, certainly among architects.14 reference to this topic as ‘a former juvenile enthu-
However, by 1967 it had gained legitimacy, even siasm’, Rowe’s 1987 essay that (in his words) ‘reca-
popularity, in Anglophone scholarship.15 Whatever pitulates’ his argument of 1950 shows he never
lingering aura of arcane knowledge Mannerist refer- outgrew the subject.20
ences may have possessed in the 1940s, this had Rowe’s reluctance to associate his own promotion
dissipated when Rowe wrote his review. The term of Mannerism with Venturi’s mirrors the paucity of
appears in design criticism earlier that decade in published comparisons. An important exception is
William Jordy’s 1960 essay on ‘the new classicizing C. Ray Smith’s book Supermannerism: New Atti-
trend in US architecture’. Jordy did not find the tudes in Post-Modern Architecture, written from
New Formalism’s ‘Mannerist ambiguity’ intrinsically 1971–73, which finds that Rowe’s essay ‘reads like
problematic, but worried that ‘mannerist’ reconcilia- the opening chapter’ of Complexity and Contradic-
tions of history and modernity would result in archi- tion, and identifies homologous qualities in Italian
tecture that ‘may quite literally cease to be modern Mannerism and architecture from 1962–72.21
in the sense that its imagery grows from the However, Smith demonstrates no causal links
urgency of modern life’.16 between his stable of ascendant architects and
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Mannerist scholarship, nor any interest in Manner- Rowe also applied his advisor’s analytical methods
ism before Complexity and Contradiction’s publi- to villas by Palladio and Le Corbusier, famously iden-
cation. Suggestions that Kahn’s ‘metaphysical’ tifying compositional parallels between their works.
ideas reflect the eponymous school of seven- Rowe’s 1947 publication of these findings in the
teenth-century British poetry, or that Venturi’s Architectural Review launched his career.24 ‘Man-
‘gentle manifesto’ borrows Rowe’s use of ‘mani- nerism and Modern Architecture’, published three
festo’, are particularly unconvincing. years later in the same journal, continued his analo-
However, this latter suggestion raises the question gical investigations into late sixteenth- and early
of whether Rowe’s 1950 essay influenced Venturi. In twentieth-century design.
most accounts they occupy separate realms repre- Venturi credits his own interest in Mannerism to
senting ‘two very distinct and divergent’ approaches his 1954–56 fellowship at the American Academy
to reconciling modern architecture and history.22 in Rome, where he ‘discovered the validity of Man-
Rowe is typically positioned as the intellectual nerism in art for our time’. This evolved out of an
godfather of the New York Five (the ‘Whites’), initial pursuit of the Baroque:
who justified their citations of inter-war avant- I went [to Rome] looking for SPACE—among
gardes as adherence to objectively valid formal prin- forms and in piazzas—but I fell in love with Borro-
ciples. Venturi is grouped with the Vincent Scully-led mini, became enamored of Michelangelo and
‘Grays’, whose historical references emphasised ico- discovered Mannerism and, later, symbolism.25
nographic legibility over purity and autonomy. While He specifies that ‘it was in the last few weeks at the
this places Venturi and Rowe in opposing camps, Academy that I realized Mannerism was what turned
Smith asserts that both groups employed distinct me on—and made Michelangelo relevant—relevant
but related ‘mannerist’ formal strategies. These for an American architect of my time.’26 These
accounts situate Rowe and Venturi within a wider 1990s’ recollections are supported by his fellowship
creative and theoretical context, but do not explain correspondence, where references to Mannerism
their respective relationships with Mannerism, or only occur during his last two months. He attended
each other. an exhibition of Mannerist painting at the Palazzo
Strozzi and mentions the style while describing his
Finding Mannerism final trip to Florence in July of 1956:
Rowe’s Mannerist interests arose from his graduate I revisited quietly & carefully some buildings of the
work at the University of London’s Warburg Institute Renaissance & Mannerist periods which meant
from 1945–47. There he studied under Rudolf very much to me—especially Michaelangelo’s
Wittkower, among the first scholars to apply this [sic] Medici tombs & Laurentian Library—also
category to sixteenth-century architecture, within a some Pontormo & Parmigianino paintings.27
milieu of burgeoning cinquecento scholarship.23 Compared to Venturi’s frequent, occasionally
While writing his thesis on Inigo Jones’ drawings, ecstatic descriptions of Baroque sites, Mannerism
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is barely present. He has credited Vincent Scully’s For any young American architect to show interest
1955 book The Shingle Style, which he read in in this period during the early 1950s was peculiar.
Rome, with ‘turning him on’ to Mannerism.28 Venturi was neither mentored by a pioneering
Complexity and Contradiction also mentions two scholar on the style, nor an architectural historian;
Mannerist studies published that year by the literary both his Princeton degrees were in architecture.
theorists William Empson and Wylie Sypher.29 As However, that programme offered unusually
Philip Finkelpearl observed in 1979 and Maarten strong history training for the post-war era, and
Delbeke demonstrated in 2010, the latter’s interdis- Venturi was introduced to the style in an Italian
ciplinary Four Stages of Renaissance Style offers painting course.36 Another accessible source was
compelling analogues to Venturi’s conceptual Pevsner’s Outline of European Architecture, with
armature.30 an extensive section on Mannerism after 1945.37
However, Venturi’s awareness of Mannerism pre- Yet they do not explain Venturi’s belief in the
dated his fellowship. His 1954 application states style’s relevance to current design practice. The
that Rome’s ‘Mannerist and Baroque buildings can repeated references to Mannerism in his three
reveal a richness and intricacy which we are realiz- Academy applications demonstrate some embryonic
ing the need for now in architecture’.31 This form of this conviction.
passing Mannerist reference is noteworthy, not Venturi has credited the influence of Wittkower’s
least because it is the only one by any post-war 1949 Architectural Principles in the Age of Human-
Rome Prize architecture Fellow.32 Venturi’s interest ism, specifically its discussion of Palladio as a
in baroque architecture and urbanism was shared Mannerist.38 Wittkower argues that first-hand
by several Academy peers, inspired by Sigfried observation of syntactical complexities and inconsis-
Giedion’s Space, Time and Architecture of 1941.33 tencies in antiquity during the architect’s 1554
Such a fleeting reference may not merit much sojourn to Rome led to a ‘metamorphosis’ in his
weight; Venturi never describes Michelangelo as a work, which thereafter acquired ‘Mannerist’ compo-
‘Mannerist’ in either his 1950 master’s thesis or his sitional ambiguities.39 The themes of Rome’s trans-
first published article of 1953.34 However, Venturi’s formative power for design creativity and a
1954 Academy statement was his third, and he liberated dialogue with history would certainly dom-
includes the same sentence on Mannerism in 1953 inate Venturi’s career. That Palladio’s pilgrimage
and, with minor differences, in 1952.35 Venturi took place precisely 400 years before his own fellow-
sought his fellowship with exceptional persistence ship may have even seemed prophetic (after he
and chose every word in his twice-revised statement won), but Architectural Principles made no explicit
deliberately—even this isolated reference to connection between Mannerism and modern
Mannerist buildings whose ‘richness and intricacy,’ design practice.
he claimed, offered critical lessons for modern However, what Dirk De Meyer has called the
architecture. ‘modern matrix’ of Wittkower’s proportional
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and Mannerism
Denise Costanzo
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theories allowed them to be taken up by modern never claims outright that Venturi read Rowe
architects, most famously the New Brutalists in before writing Complexity and Contradiction.
London.40 Rowe may have been unimpressed by Ockman asserts that this book was influenced by
Venturi’s Mannerist interests in 1967 because he Rowe’s writing, but does not specify how; when
had witnessed the ‘New Palladianism’s’ birth and asked, Venturi did not recall reading the article.45
decline in the early 1950s. Venturi likely followed Yet some familiarity with ‘Mannerism and Modern
this movement from Eero Saarinen’s Michigan Architecture’ is likely. It appeared in the journal in
office, where he worked from 1951–53, before he which Venturi published his first article in 1953
gained a direct connection to this circle in 1960 and would attempt (unsuccessfully) to publish
through his partner Denise Scott Brown, who another in 1955.46 When submitting his first essay
studied in their orbit at the Architectural Association in 1950, Venturi notes his work’s connections to
from 1952–55.41 The spare, Miesian works inspired two AR articles of December, 1949 and February,
by Wittkower’s theories through the early 1950s cer- 1950, indicating he read it attentively.47 Further-
tainly bridged cinquecento scholarship and modern more, in 1952 Rowe came to Yale and there inter-
practice, but seem inadequate to explain Venturi’s acted with Louis Kahn, whom Venturi knew well.48
interest in Mannerist ‘intricacy and richness’. He Given Venturi’s lack of interest in proportion he
insists that proportion ‘does not interest me at all may have ignored ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal
—it never has, nor the golden mean, nor Corb’s Villa’ in the 1947 AR. However, it is implausible
modulor.’42 In addition, in a 1956 letter from that he would overlook a May, 1950, article relating
Rome to Anne Tyng, Venturi writes that: this style to modern architecture in a journal he fol-
I have read Wittkower’s book on ‘Architecture in lowed closely, written by an author known to one of
the Age of Humanism’ which deals with Palladio his chief mentors.49
an architect whom I am finding I like very much
—not sure why—but for reasons different from Mannerism and Complexity
those emphasized in that book … or I should Even if Venturi never did read ‘Mannerism and
say that his relevance today is based on different Modern Architecture’, its absence from Complexity
aspects of him than those.43 and Contradiction’s sources is glaring. Whatever
Because Venturi’s language suggests he had just read the reason for Rowe’s and Venturi’s mutual silence
Wittkower for the first time, this probably did not on their common interests during the 1950s and
influence his pre-fellowship interest in Mannerism. 1960s, their first meeting in Rome in 1969 was
When Venturi wrote his first Academy application apparently cordial. Rowe recalls finding Venturi
in 1952, the only published work linking Mannerism and Scott Brown ‘as charming as their architecture
and modernism was Rowe’s 1950 essay.44 While was more than acceptable’.50 Rowe’s consistent
Rowe never uses the phrase ‘intricacy and richness’, support for his former advisee James Stirling,
it captures the formal qualities he explores. Smith whose work and ideas paralleled many fundamental
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aspects of Venturi and Scott Brown’s (including the However, his view of Venturi and his first book
need for modern architecture to engage in a critical had intensified by 1970.55 In a backhanded compli-
creative dialogue with history and popular culture), ment, Rowe describes the author as the ‘victim’ of a
suggests that Rowe would also approach them ‘campaign to enlarge him beyond what he really is—
with a similar degree of sympathy. a thoughtful, attractive, and, so far, insufficiently
By 1976, when Rowe finally acknowledged their considered figure’. Dismissive of his admirers’ ‘inso-
overlapping Mannerist interests, both had achieved briety’ and Scully’s ‘critical hyperbolics’, Rowe
considerable prominence. Venturi’s international declares sarcastically that ‘a niche has already been
reputation appeared to confirm even Scully’s procla- prepared [for Venturi] in the architectural hall of
mation that his Yale colleague’s first book was fame.’ These passages mockingly affirm Venturi’s
‘probably the most important writing on the soaring reputation, but Rowe also credits him with
making of architecture’ since Le Corbusier’s Vers ‘integrity, talent, and an interesting point of view’
une architecture.51 By the mid-1970s, Rowe’s work and praises him as an architect who at least ‘has
at Texas, Cambridge and Cornell, where he something to say’ about the validity of subjective
remained after 1962, had earned him parallel if pri- taste, freedom of creative choice, and who shows
marily academic eminence. Rowe revisited his earlier a healthy scepticism towards both apocalyptic-
essays in 1976 because they had become sufficiently utopian and Zeitgeistian schools of architectural
renowned to merit reissue as an anthology. His com- myth. Such positions were consonant with Rowe’s
ments about Venturi’s impact on the discussion of own; he finds ‘there are many aspects of his
Mannerism, however dismissive, suggest Rowe general theoretical position which ought to
observed his ascent attentively. command a very easy assent.’ Rowe declares that
So does his other, most extensive discussion of Venturi’s project ‘promises to be the best building
Venturi from the interim: a review of Venturi and at Yale since about 1952’ and ends the essay by
Rauch’s proposed addition to the Yale Mathematics complimenting the design as unusually worthy of
Building (figs 1, 2).52 Written soon after their design serious critical treatment.56
won the controversial competition in 1970, it was Yet many of his positive judgements are seasoned
only published in 1976.53 As a prelude to his discus- with disdain and his tone is frustrated. Rowe laments
sion of the project, Rowe spends over a third of the the impossibility of considering Venturi’s project
essay—four times the length of his 1967 review— ‘without more verbal ado’, because ‘the direct
revisiting Complexity and Contradiction. As before, approach seems to be blocked’ by ‘a plethora of
Rowe made few mentions of Mannerism beyond words which intervene to disallow any immediate,
referring to Venturi’s illustrations as ‘mostly of Man- analytical contact’. His stated goal is ‘to expel at
nerist, Baroque and Edwardian provenance’, and to least some of the clouds of critical incense which
the ‘pseudo-Mannerist exercises’ in his design fog the air’ and, as someone neither ‘hopelessly
work.54 prejudiced either in favor of Venturi or against
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Figure 1. Perspective
view: Venturi and
Rauch, Mathematics
Building Addition
Competition, Yale
University, New Haven,
Connecticut, 1969–70
(Venturi Scott Brown
Collection, Architectural
Archives, University of
Pennsylvania).

him’, provide a rational, clear-eyed assessment. He complains that Venturi never considers how the
criticises Venturi himself for the way he uses works in his (‘insufficiently witty’) architectural col-
history to legitimise his own work. Rowe scoffs lages came to acquire the compositional qualities he
that ‘almost any architect of the last four centuries admires. Rowe is disturbed that this young architect,
who has displayed moderate sophistication’ was intent upon shattering modernist myths, demon-
‘conscripted to decorate the lower branches of [Ven- strates no awareness of ‘the seminal role played by
turi’s] genealogical tree.’ On Venturi’s enthusiasm for myth in the development of any architectural
‘a dichotomy between high and low culture’, Rowe approach, strategy, or style’—including his own.57
deems these opposing worlds of ‘Honky-tonk and In essence, Rowe objects that Venturi invokes his-
Caserta’ absorbed, but ‘not always digested’. He torical architecture bereft of architectural history,
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Figure 2. First-floor
plan: Venturi and
Rauch, Mathematics
Building Addition
Competition, Yale
University, New Haven,
Connecticut, 1969–70
(Venturi Scott Brown
Collection, Architectural
Archives, University of
Pennsylvania).

understood as a consideration of causation and Rowe’s 1967 emphasis on its ‘stimulating visual
meaning as well as form. This may be salient for a insights’.58 Both convey Venturi’s lack of interest in
book that helped re-establish history’s architectural asking ‘why’ in favour of ‘what’ and ‘how’. This
legitimacy, but, as Rowe concedes, ignores the was noted with varying degrees of concern by
stated scope of Venturi’s explicitly formalist project. several historian-critics, depending on whether
As readers know, Complexity and Contradiction they found Venturi’s famously subjective introduc-
alternates between expositions of compositional tory sentence—‘I like complexity and contradiction
principles and descriptions of their embodiment in in architecture’—and general approach convincing.
his mosaics of illustrated works. Norberg-Schultz Rowe’s criticism of 1967 and 1970 suggests that
called it a compositional ‘grammar’, recalling he does not. Stanislaus von Moos also claims that
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‘the catholicity of Venturi’s aesthetic interests is pre- the occurrence of ‘intrinsically Mannerist’ forms in
cisely what bred the mistrust of many colleagues, the Villa Schwob (‘in the main stream of the
including Colin Rowe’.59 modern movement’) is merely ‘coincidental or of
But for Rowe to mistrust Venturi’s largely visual, deeper significance’.61 Rowe suspects their persist-
subjectively grounded, aesthetically and chronologi- ence in historically and geographically disparate
cally heterodox approach would contradict his own works entails a shared underlying condition. He
work. Rowe’s writing is famous for its anachronistic explores this, and concludes that architects in both
juxtapositions and meticulous compositional dissec- eras expressed conflicted resistance to not-yet sup-
tions, often interwoven with entirely subjective planted formal frameworks (Bramantean classicism
characterisations. The language of ‘Mannerism and and late nineteenth-century academicism, respect-
Modern Architecture’ is a classic example, continu- ively), and extends his thesis to explain why both
ing the scholarly tradition of emphasising the Le Corbusier and art historians could simultaneously
cinquecento style’s putative emotional effects on and separately appreciate Mannerist qualities in the
the viewer. Rowe insists that contemplating the 1920s.62 For Venturi, who believed mannerist qual-
‘façade [of the Villa Schwob] for any length of ities arise naturally from artists’ sophisticated
time, one is both ravished and immensely irritated’, engagement with their respective media, particularly
because its ‘blank surface is both disturbance and during periods of tension and uncertainty, their
delight’. Zuccheri’s ‘violent’ Casino is ‘almost a text- recurrence throughout history was no mystery at all.
book illustration of deliberate architectural derange-
ment’, and the central void of the centrifugal Cross-cultural communication
Bauhaus ‘disturbs’ and ‘frustrates’ the eye.60 Rowe’s and Venturi’s different uses of Mannerism
Rowe’s writing, like Venturi’s, blurs the line reflect their respective positions as architectural his-
between the objective and the subjective. Vision, torian-critic and practising architect-theorist.
reason and judgement become connoisseurship, Rowe’s impatience with Complexity and Contradic-
the ability to sense and know, in the familiar sense tion’s more cavalier approach may be an application
of connaître, that elusive, tantalising quantity of one genre of architectural writing’s standards to
called ‘artistic quality’, accessible to a well-devel- another. If so, this was hardly fair; Venturi described
oped architectural ‘sensibility’. himself as ‘as an architect rather than a scholar’ and
However, compared to Venturi’s rapid-fire ‘an architect who employs criticism rather than a
glances at hundreds of examples, Rowe’s more critic who chooses architecture’, writing ‘an apolo-
intense analysis of fewer works and denser prose gia—an explanation, indirectly, of my work’.63 He
gives his writing a very different texture. Further- thus deliberately associated his manifesto not with
more, once Rowe has discerned comparable visual histories, but theoretical polemics. Although his
strategies in façades by Palladio, Zuccheri and Le work was constructed upon solid architectural
Corbusier, he pauses to ask a question: whether history knowledge, Venturi wrote as an architect
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sharing a methodology and insights that were acces- carried out his lifelong effort to reconcile these
sible and applicable to architectural analysis and ‘two bodies of information—the one art historical,
design.64 the other modern architectural’ and effect their
Despite this, the fact that Venturi ‘never stipulates ‘convergence into a work of rational exegesis’.68
that the forms [he] admires came about through the He had shifted from professional architectural train-
activity of just such fantasies as he seems prone to ing to graduate study in art history after a war injury
reject’ remains inexcusable for Rowe. Perhaps impeded drafting. After earning a master’s degree,
Rowe believed the creative-theoretical approach, he eschewed a doctorate to teach in design pro-
with its emphasis on inspiration over rigour, occupies grammes, re-crossing an institutional and disciplin-
a lower position in a hierarchy of architectural litera- ary boundary.69 Rowe’s ‘ambiguous relationship to
ture. If so, this again implies a highly conflicted “professional” art history’ is evident in his criticisms
relationship with his own work. ‘Mannerism and of both worlds: ‘the mental block of so many
Modern Architecture’ is hardly architectural history Modern architects against history is notorious’, and
in the established sense; its sparse footnotes make ‘the unwillingness of so many art historians to
little mention of the vast world of secondary scholar- enter into serious criticism of contemporary achieve-
ship from which he drew.65 Rowe suggests a poss- ment is one of the more patent limitations of that
ible conclusion about Mannerist-era domestic species’.70 Just as he called himself an ‘architect
architecture with a diffidence quite unlike his bold manqué’, if Rowe considered himself an ‘applied’
formal readings, becoming uncharacteristically instead of a ‘real’ architectural historian, this would
circumspect when presenting historical, rather than explain his deference towards a discipline defined
formal or trans-historical, theses.66 He shows even for him by his advisor’s generation of giants.
clearer deference to early modern scholars in his Rowe’s story about an encounter in Italy conveys a
1976 introduction to this article, where he apolo- highly nuanced view of the comparative knowledge
gises for his essay’s lack of ‘sophistication and and language of architects and architectural histor-
detachment’ compared to the art-historical discus- ians. At San Francesco in Arezzo in 1950, he
sion. This self-consciousness is evident again in became intrigued by an elderly American woman’s
1996, when he confusingly deprecates his 1987 observations about the church and its art. He
essay on this topic as ‘pedantic’, yet also lacking learned that her quiet husband was Arthur Brown
‘the seriosità of Germanic art history’, good at best (1874–1957), a prominent, Paris-educated
for ‘an amusing diversion for an evening’s reading’ San Francisco architect. They travelled together,
by a few (mostly American) architects. He expects and Rowe observed with interest Brown’s taste,
architects to find his writing weighty and scholars recollections and fin de siècle Beaux-Arts descriptive
to consider it lightweight.67 vocabulary. He was impressed by a ‘condition of sen-
Rowe spent his career perched between two intel- sibility entirely remote from anything which I had
lectual cultures. From this precarious position he been led to associate with either California or
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San Francisco’, and by the Americans’ use of a ‘par- His distinction between the architect’s synthetic,
ticular French studio language of some fifty years energetic vision and the historian’s analytical detach-
back which was very different from the art historical ment echoes the contrast between his own mode of
language to which I had lately been exposed.’71 writing (which, if not entirely art historical, did
Rowe credits this meeting with inspiring his desire ‘operate to separate and divide’) and Venturi’s
to go to the United States: design-oriented language of ‘immediacy and enthu-
surely, all Americans could not be like those siasm’ and ‘uncriticized tradition’.
whom I had met in Italy? This seemed quite con- This may (perhaps) acquit Rowe of disciplinary
trary to the intuitions of common sense and to snobbery. But it still leaves unanswered why,
the received ‘wisdom’ of England that: Americans having embraced the Browns, Rowe kept Venturi
just don’t talk like this, and what, in the end, is it —the ‘excited critic’ with whom he shared so
that they know anyway?72 many positions—at arms’ length. The central issue
He is curious about the distinct nature of North may have been neither Venturi’s use of history per
American or, more precisely, the North American se, nor his chosen mode of writing, but transpar-
architect’s knowledge. Rowe also claims this ency: not in the sense Rowe explored with Robert
encounter excited his awareness of two distinct Slutzky, but transparency in authorship. Rowe’s
ways of approaching and discussing architecture: 1970 essay pivots upon his observation that
The studio language, which belongs to the ‘though one cannot object to Venturi’s skepticism’
process of architectural education as it relates to towards architecture’s various dominant myths,
the drawing board, is, of necessity, the voice of ‘we are finally left wondering what, in this area, he
immediacy and enthusiasm. It is the voice of does think or believe’. Rowe sees another rift
excited critics and intelligent students who may, between the presented and the present in the Yale
all of them, be largely ignorant… But the art his- Mathematics Building. Against Venturi’s claim that
torical language is something other. It is the his design was ‘ordinary’, Rowe asks how, if so, it
voice of caution and aspires to erudition; and if could inspire such an explosion of criticism. ‘The
the studio language, always vivacious, is prone answer is, of course, that the Mathematics Building
to be the language of uncriticized tradition, then is not what it is said to be [emphasis added]’. Ven-
the art historical language, often still attempting turi’s ‘ordinary’ is not entirely so, but reflects a
to realize that impossible ideal of Ranke’s, simply ‘quasi-private language’ wherein ‘to be “ordinary”
to show it how it really was (wie es eigentlich is to seem to be ordinary, [but] it is, also, to be diffi-
gewesen), will always operate to separate and cult, to be cryptic, to be cute [emphasis added]’.
divide.73 Rowe does not object to Venturi’s ‘drastic, if not
Rowe here expresses profound respect for the aes- unique’ conclusions, but to the opacity of a text
thetic insight and historical appreciation that an which ‘seems to become a little evasive’. Determined
‘ignorant but intelligent’ practitioner can possess. to pin down what lies behind Complexity and
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Contradiction’s surface messages, Rowe is forced to The issue for him was Venturi’s delivery of his ideas
guess at ‘what seems to be Venturi’s position’, for- in deceptively contrary packaging. Rowe perceived
mulating hypotheses that ‘seem to approximate his that his professed subjectivity, inclusiveness and
point of view’ [both emphases added].74 directness masked a more authoritative, elitist and
Is Rowe’s refusal to accept Venturi’s work at face subtle agenda.78 Although he knew the sophisti-
value warranted? He deems the Yale design’s claim cated ‘Venturi is in no danger of becoming the
to ‘ordinariness’ problematic because he sees a dupe of his own apologetics’, the obscuring of his
schism between what the design ‘is supposed to (real) ideas created ‘the eminent, and imminent,
be’ and its actuality, ‘its enigmatic and deceptive threat of others becoming so’.
exterior’ forming a ‘disguise’ where ‘the public Venturi’s claims for Complexity and Contradic-
face is deadpan; the private world is chic’.75 From tion’s modest ambitions were a bit disingenuous;
a clever ‘game of the learned reference and the cal- he had taught its essentials to his theory students
culated footnote’, where ambiguity, allusion, and at the University of Pennsylvania since 1961, so
contradiction are theatrical virtues, Rowe’s language this purportedly descriptive, personal project was
pushes it across an ethical threshold. If its exterior’s also prescriptive and didactic. That he calls his own
‘refusal to communicate’ and ‘determination not writing ‘indirectly polemical’ underscores the delib-
to reveal’ is merely taciturn, Venturi’s interior erateness of his oblique approach.79 Scully found
‘insists upon everything other than factuality’. ‘its argument unfolds like a curtain slowly lifting
Although the building ‘has many virtues’, and ‘is cer- from the eyes’, like a revelatory vision.80 As Philip
tainly far better than Venturi claims it to be’, Rowe Finkelpearl, the literary theorist and Venturi’s
essentially accuses both architect and design of former Princeton classmate observed, ‘what makes
lying.76 Although he later described this essay as a [Complexity and Contradiction] particularly persua-
dispassionate, ‘empirical critique’ that should sive is the sense that it is based on a prodigious
‘stand as evidence of my regard for Robert and mastery of architectural history’.81 Even in the sup-
Denise’, neither Venturi nor his supporters probably posedly anti-historical post-war decades, that sense
viewed it as such.77 of history provided a powerful aura of legitimacy.
Rowe is not the most obvious advocate for author- Rowe may have considered Venturi’s persuasive
ial directness; his penchant for labyrinthine syntax indirectness to be a misuse of history. His own
and abstruse arguments can make his writing work psychoanalyses modernism’s repressed
opaque as well. But Rowe’s texts are seemingly relationship with history, pulling speculative, often
transparent expressions of what he sees, and what disconcerting connections to the foreground
he thinks about what he sees. He has no objection through rigorous formal and broad cultural analysis.
to theatricality per se, and treats Venturi’s ‘willing- It demonstrates both the painstaking challenges of
ness to dissimulate’ as potentially positive within ‘real’ history—if anything, his demanding prose
the fantasy-scape of Yale’s Gothic Revival campus. amplifies the complexity of his analyses—and its
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Colin Rowe, Robert Venturi
and Mannerism
Denise Costanzo
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power to depose architecture’s dominant doctrines, modernism and architectural history’s to design.
making history indispensible for architects who wish His book may have even seemed like a cheapened
to transcend passive consumption of the field’s self- version of Rowe’s own positions: haute cuisine
justifying myths. His case studies are bridges repackaged as convenience food.
between two separate fields and daunting caveats The extent and implications of these differences,
for the Kunstgeschichte in which he was trained. indistinct in 1967, would have come into sharper
In comparison, Venturi’s picture of the architect’s focus by 1970. Rowe’s provocative Yale essay chal-
relationship with history appears blithely relaxed. He lenges Venturi to further debate, which apparently
suggests that architects do not need to confront never occurred. Its unflattering picture of unde-
history in all its scholarly complexity to learn from it served fame, incisive demonstration of incongrui-
and use it in their work. His book promises a user- ties between the Yale design’s claims and
friendly lens that reveals enduring guarantors of achievements, and accusations of architectural
architectural quality in any age; with some guidance and theoretical deception could hardly have grati-
from a fellow traveller, architects can learn to see the fied Venturi. Amidst the uproar over the compe-
tensions that make great buildings great, and use tition, including accusations that Venturi’s
this knowledge in practice. If Rowe’s writing uses participation and win were unethical, Rowe’s
history to make a painful diagnosis of modernism’s essay was probably classified among the excoriat-
problems (largely that of clinging to an unattainable ing critiques. Rowe in turn may have been
faith in its own utopian teleology), Complexity and displeased by Scully’s designation of the compe-
Contradiction uses it to suggest—gently—a palata- tition’s critics as ‘despicable scum’.82 Five years
ble prescription for its ailments. later, as Rowe meditated on the legacy of his Man-
Seen thus, Rowe’s and Venturi’s most fundamen- nerism essay while Oppositions prepared to publish
tal difference is in tone rather than substance. his review of the Yale project, the events of 1970
Venturi wears his considerable erudition lightly, certainly coloured the brief, dismissive statements
and his accessible analyses exude sprezzatura. His about Venturi with which we began.
book’s epochal and global impact validates the
power of an approach already proven by Giedion: Knowing history
history’s integration into a heavily visual argument The nature of intellectual work in architecture vis à
about aesthetics is most unthreatening for archi- vis history was an active issue in the 1960s and
tects. Complexity and Contradiction seductively 1970s. Jorge Otero-Pailos has recently suggested
naturalised specific works, places and periods, and that architects adopted alternative approaches to
privileged first-hand visual analysis over libraries as research grounded in philosophy and psychology
the basis of architectural knowledge. But to Rowe, during this period to counter art historians’ hege-
it likely seemed that Venturi was popularising a mony over architecture’s history. Significantly, he
facile, superficial view of Mannerism’s relevance to identifies Jean Labatut of Princeton, another of
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Venturi’s mentors, and Charles Moore (who hired Notes and references
Venturi at Yale) as central to the development of 1. C. Rowe, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and other
expanded historical methodologies.83 The wider Essays (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1976),
conflict this implies over architectural history’s inte- p. 29; ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’, Architec-
gration with design practice and scholarship, and tural Review, 107 (May, 1950), pp. 289–299.
2. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architec-
the discursive cultures surrounding various modes
ture (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1966);
of research and writing, is germane to the case of
Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aes-
Rowe and Venturi.
thetic? (New York, Reinhold, 1966).
It is also significant that Ockman found Rowe’s 3. C. Rowe, ‘Waiting for Utopia’, The New York Times
closest counterpart in Manfredo Tafuri, calling (10th September, 1967).
them ‘the two most important theorists of form 4. C. Rowe, As I Was Saying: Recollections and Miscella-
without utopia during the postwar period, compar- neous Essays, vol. 2: Cornelliana, ed. A. Caragonne
able in intellectual and moral intensity’.84 While (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1996), p. 78.
Rowe’s language points towards the inimitably 5. J. Ockman, ‘Form Without Utopia’, Journal of the
demanding Tafuri, the substance of his positions Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH) 57, no. 4
is often closer (perhaps uncomfortably close) to (December, 1998), pp. 448–454. Ockman mentions
Venturi’s decorated shed and discusses Rowe’s 1967
Venturi: certainly the Venturi of Complexity and
book review.
Contradiction. To consider Rowe and Venturi
6. Venturi cites both in Complexity and Contradiction; on
together through Mannerism is to contemplate
Rowe’s interest in Eliot and Greenberg, see A. Vidler,
the broader aims and means of historically Histories of the Immediate Present: Inventing Architec-
grounded architectural writing. Both sought to tural Modernism (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press,
reactivate contemporary practice through critical 2008), pp. 85 and 216, n. 54.
and formal engagement with a deeply, creatively 7. Only 108 of Venturi’s 253 illustrations date to these
considered past, and presented their projects to centuries.
architects in deliberately, but distinctly, provocative 8. C. R. Smith, ‘The Permissiveness of Supermannerism’,
terms, to very different effect. It is suitably ironic Progressive Architecture (October, 1967), pp. 169–
that Venturi and Rowe’s different readings of 173 and Supermannerism: New Attitudes in Post-
Modern Architecture (New York, Dutton, 1977);
history mirror the two dominant readings of Man-
P. Finkelpearl, review of revised editions of Complexity
nerist aesthetics as either courtly and mischievous,
and Contradiction, Learning from Las Vegas and other
or tortured and angst-ridden. They orbit Manner-
publications on Venturi, JSAH, 38, no. 2 (May, 1979),
ism, and each other, occupying common concep- p. 203; Maarten Delbeke, ‘Mannerism and Meaning
tual territory while facing outward in different in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’, The
directions in a conflicted kinship which highlights Journal of Architecture, 15, no. 3 (2010), pp. 267–282.
the persistent challenges of applying the lessons 9. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction, op. cit.,
of history to design. p. 28.
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Denise Costanzo
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10. R. Venturi, D. Scott Brown, Architecture as Signs and 17. ‘Interview with Peter Eisenman; The Last Grand Tourist:
Systems: For a Mannerist Time (Cambridge, Mass., Travels with Colin Rowe’, Grand Tour: Perspecta, 41
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004). (2008), pp. 131–139.
11. C. Norberg-Schultz’s review of Complexity and Contra- 18. P. Eisenman’s dissertation was published as The Formal
diction found that its best ideas echoed his own Inten- Basis of Modern Architecture (Baden, Müller, 2006),
tions in Architecture of 1965: ‘Less or More?’, p. 29.
Architectural Review, 143 (April, 1968), pp. 257–258. 19. These include Michelangelo, Palladio, Borromini,
12. As I Was Saying, vol. 2, op. cit., p. 79. Rowe cites Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor, Soane, Ledoux, Butterfield,
C. R. Smith, Supermannerism, op. cit., which observes Furness, Sullivan, Lutyens, Le Corbusier, Aalto and
this on p. 97. Kahn; Complexity and Contradiction, op. cit., pp. 26, 28.
13. An Outline of European Architecture (New York, 20. ‘Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Maccarani and the Sixteenth
Penguin, 1943), pp. 209–210. For A. Blunt’s introduc- Century Grid/Frame/Lattice/Web’; reprinted in As I Was
tion of the style to British architects, see ‘Mannerism in Saying, vol. 2, op. cit., p. 104.
Architecture’, RIBA Journal, 56, no. 7 (March, 1949), 21. C. R. Smith, Supermannerism, op. cit.
pp. 195–201. 22. N. Levine, ‘Robert Venturi and “The Return of Histori-
14. Initial 1920s’ discussions of ‘mannerist architecture’ cism”’, in, C. Mead, ed., The Architecture of Robert
were in German; the first English articles appeared in Venturi (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico
the mid-1930s. For Mannerist historiography through Press, 1989), pp. 45–67.
to Rowe’s 1950 essay, see D. De Meyer, ‘Mannerism, 23. On Rowe’s work with Wittkower, see A. Vidler, His-
Modernity and the Modern Architect, 1920–1950’, tories of the Immediate Present, op. cit., pp. 61–68.
The Journal of Architecture, 15, n. 3 (2010), pp. 243– 24. ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa: Palladio and Le
265; see also A. Vidler, ‘Mannerist Modernism: Colin Corbusier Compared’, Architectural Review, 101
Rowe’, in Histories of the Immediate Present, op. cit. (March, 1947), pp. 101–104.
15. J. Shearman’s Mannerism (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 25. ‘Robert Venturi’s Response at the Pritzker Prize Award
1967) was most widespread. A. Hauser’s Mannerism: ceremony at the Palacio de Iturbide, Mexico City, May
The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of 16, 1991’, and ‘Notes for a Lecture Celebrating the
Modern Art (New York, Knopf, 1965) linked it to mod- Centennial of the American Academy in Rome’, in,
ernism, and two future critic-historians published R. Venturi, ed., Iconography and Electronics upon a
studies: K. W. Forster, Mannerist Painting: Sixteenth Generic Architecture: A View from the Drafting
Century (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1966) and Room (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1996),
M. Tafuri, L’architettura del manierismo nel cinque- pp. 53, 99–100.
cento europeo (Rome, Officina, 1964). 26. R. Venturi, ‘Centennial Lecture’, op. cit., p. 53. Venturi
16. Jordy observes ‘mannerist hesitancy’, ‘mannerist form- likely acquired the book on his return trip to the US in
alism’, ‘mannerist instability’, ‘mannerist elements’, late 1955.
‘mannerist tensions’ and ‘mannerist ambiguity’ in 27. R. Venturi to his parents, 6th May and 3rd July, 1956
works by Johnson, Rudolph, Stone, and Yamasaki: (225.RV.103 and 225.RV.110, Venturi Scott Brown
‘The Formal Image: USA’, Architectural Review, 127 Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Penn-
(March, 1960), pp. 157–165. sylvania; hereafter VSB Collection, AAUP).
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28. ‘Homage to Vincent Scully and His Shingle Style, With Art: Painting’ (Robert Venturi Personal Files [Temp.],
Reminiscences and Some Outcomes’, Iconography and VSB Collection, AAUP).
Electronics, op. cit., pp. 41–42. 37. Discussion of this period was absent in the first edition
29. Venturi cites a reprint edition of Empson’s Seven of 1943, but added for the second of 1945; N.
Elements of Ambiguity (New York, Meridian, 1955), Pevsner, Outline of European Architecture. Two
originally of 1930. studies in English later that decade were Pevsner’s
30. M. Delbeke, ‘Mannerism and Meaning’, op. cit., ‘The Architecture of Mannerism’ in, G. Grigson, ed.,
pp. 267–282 and P. Finkelpearl, review in the JSAH, The Mint: A Miscellany of Art, Literature, and Criticism
op. cit., p. 203. (London, Routledge, 1946) and A. Blunt’s ‘Mannerism
31. Statement of purpose [1954], Fellows Files: Venturi, in Architecture’, op. cit.
Robert 1954–56 (American Academy in Rome Archives, 38. P. Barriere, S. Lavin, ‘Interview with Denise Scott Brown
New York, New York; hereafter AAR Archives). and Robert Venturi’, Perspecta, 28 (1997), pp. 126–145.
32. D. Costanzo, ‘The Lessons of Rome: Architects at the 39. See M. Delbeke, ‘Mannerism and Meaning’, op. cit.,
American Academy, 1947–66’ (PhD diss., The Pennsyl- p. 270.
vania State University, 2009). 40. D. De Meyer, ‘Mannerism and Modernity,’ op. cit., p. 255
33. D. Costanzo, ‘Baroque in Translation: Giedion’s History and A. Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present, op. cit.,
for Modern Architects’, Proceedings of the 2nd Annual pp. 68–73; H. Millon, ‘Rudolf Wittkower’s “Architectural
Meeting of the European Architectural History Principles in the Age of Humanism”: Its Influence on the
Network, Brussels, Belgium (May, 2012), pp. 410– Development and Interpretation of Modern Architecture’,
414. Giedion discusses the Renaissance and the JSAH, 31, 2 (May, 1972), pp. 83–91 and Alina Payne,
Baroque, but makes no reference to Mannerism. ‘Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism’,
34. ‘The Campidoglio: A Case Study’, Architectural JSAH, 53, 3 (September, 1994), pp. 322–342.
Review, 113 (May, 1953), pp. 333–334; both this 41. D. L. Minnite, ‘Chronology’, in, D. Brownlee, et al., eds,
and his thesis are reprinted in Iconography and Elec- Out of the Ordinary: Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown
tronics, op. cit. Venturi’s report on his 1948 travels and Associates: Architecture, Urbanism, Design (Phila-
(‘Summer Activity: Report and Some Impressions; delphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 245–
225.RV.34, VSB Collection, AAUP) makes no reference 246. Scott Brown credits Wittkower with inspiring her
to Mannerism. travel to Italy in 1955–56 in search of ‘Mannerist archi-
35. ‘Application, Rome Prize Fellowship in Architecture, tecture as well as early Modern architecture’. M. Stierli,
1952–53’ and ‘Application, Rome Prize Fellowship in ‘Interview with Venturi and Scott Brown’, AAR Archives.
Architecture, 1953–54’ (225.RV.38, VSB Collection, 42. P. Barriere, S.Lavin, ‘Interview’, op. cit., p. 136.
AAUP). 43. R. Venturi to A. Tyng, 27th January, 1956 (74.II.A.163,
36. This course included a unit on Mannerism and the Anne Griswold Tyng Collection, AAUP). Wittkower
Baroque, emphasising the latter. Michelangelo was moved to Harvard in 1954, then Columbia in 1956,
not presented as a Mannerist, but as a High Renais- increasing his book’s US visibility.
sance master who carried ‘the seeds of the Baroque’; 44. A. Blunt’s lecture concludes with Le Corbusier, which
‘Lecture XXIV and XXV: Mannerism and Baroque’, A. Vidler believes influenced Rowe. However, this is a
Student Work–Princeton U–Undergraduate, ‘Italian brief, speculative coda to a talk on the cinquecento.
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45. J. Ockman, ‘Form Without Utopia’, op. cit., p. 452; 52. C. Rowe, ‘The Yale Mathematics Building’, Opposi-
R. Venturi, conversation with the Author, 3rd Novem- tions, 6 (Spring, 1976), pp. 11–19.
ber, 2009. 53. Ibid., see P. Eisenman’s introduction; the volume for
46. R. Venturi to his parents, 2nd May, 1955 (225.RV.64, which it was intended is C. W. Moore, N. Pyle, eds,
VSB Collection, AAUP). The Yale Mathematics Building Competition (New
47. R. Venturi to The Editors, The Architectural Review, Haven, Yale University Press, 1974).
8 November 1950 (225.RV.36, VSB Collection, 54. C. Rowe, ‘The Yale Mathematics Building’, op. cit.,
AAUP). He mentions H. H. Reed, ‘Rome: the Third pp. 12–13.
Sack’, Architectural Review, 107 (February, 1950), 55. J. Ockman notes Rowe was ‘somewhat underestimat-
pp. 91–110 and I. I . De Wolfe, ‘Townscape: a ing the impact that Venturi’s book would soon have’
plea for an English visual philosophy founded on in 1967: ‘Form Without Utopia’, op. cit., p. 452.
the true rock of Sir Uvedale Price’, Architectural 56. C. Rowe, ‘The Yale Mathematics Building’, op. cit.,
Review, 106 (December, 1949), pp. 354–362. pp. 11–12, 15, 19.
Venturi found ‘points of similarity in subject, 57. Ibid., pp. 11–14.
approach, and method’ between his thesis and 58. C. Norberg-Schultz, ‘Less or More?’, op. cit.
Reed’s article to be ‘startlingly frequent’. This 59. S. Von Moos, Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, op cit.,
article fortuitously ‘reached American subscribers p. 12.
two days after’ his thesis presentation. 60. C. Rowe, ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’, op.
48. C. Shane, ‘Colin Rowe, 1920–1999’, Journal of cit., pp. 290, 292, 297–98.
Architectural Education, 53, n. 4 (May, 2000), 61. Ibid., p. 292.
p. 191. In 1950 Kahn served on Venturi’s thesis 62. Ibid., p. 299; D. De Meyer, ‘Mannerism and Modernity’
jury and Venturi worked for his former partner, op. cit.
O. Stonorov. Kahn also wrote a letter of recommen- 63. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction, pp. 13,
dation for Venturi’s first Rome Prize application of 16.
1952; D. Costanzo, ‘Lessons of Rome’, op. cit., 64. C. Norberg-Schultz notes that Venturi’s descriptions
p. 238. follow Wölfflin, Frankl, Brinkmann, Wittkower and
49. Another possibly influential article is N. Pevsner’s Sedlmayr: ‘Less or More?’, op. cit., pp. 257–258.
‘Double Profile’, Architectural Review, 107 (March, 65. C. Rowe cites N. Pevsner and A. Blunt but, as D. De
1950), pp. 147–158. C. R. Smith discusses this in Meyer and A. Vidler note, excludes his advisor’s pio-
Supermannerism, but not its intersection with Ven- neering work: D. De Meyer, ‘Mannerism and Moder-
turi’s interests in Elizabethan architecture and lit- nity,’ op. cit., p. 256; A. Vidler, Histories of the
erary theory. Immediate Present, op. cit., p. 93.
50. C. Rowe describes meeting Venturi and Scott Brown at 66. He finds the Casa di Palladio and Zuccheri’s Casino
the Palazzo Farnese: As I Was Saying, vol. 2, op. cit., formal ‘commentaries on the same theme’, writing
p. 79. that ‘it would be pleasant to assume that they rep-
51. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction, op. cit., resented a type, a formula for the later sixteenth
p. 11; S. Von Moos, Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown: century artist’s house’: ‘Mannerism and Modern Archi-
Buildings and Projects (New York, Rizzoli, 1987), p. 35. tecture’, op. cit., p. 291.
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67. C. Rowe, ‘The Provocative Façade’, in As I Was Saying, pression in the Duck and Decorated Shed’, in,
vol. 2, op. cit., p. 104; D. De Meyer, ‘Mannerism and A. Vinegar, ed., Relearning from Las Vegas (Minneapo-
Modernity’, op. cit., n. 70. lis, University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
68. C. Rowe, Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, op. cit., p. 29. 76. C. Rowe, ‘The Yale Mathematics Building’, op. cit.,
69. C. Rowe, ‘Architectural Education: USA’, in As I Was pp. 13, 15–16.
Saying, vol. 2, op. cit. 77. C. Rowe, As I Was Saying, vol. 2, op. cit., p. 80.
70. A. Vidler, Histories of the Immediate Present, op. cit., 78. Rowe avers that Venturi’s book ‘discloses him to be
p. 63; C. Rowe, R. Slutzky, ‘Transparency, Literal and something of a Mandarin’, and his designs ‘suggest
Phenomenal, Part II’, Perspecta, 13/14 (1971), p. 297; something equally elitist’: ‘The Yale Mathematics
see also A. Ponte, ‘Woefully Inadequate: Colin Building’, op. cit., p. 145.
Rowe’s Composition and Character’, in L’architettura 79. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction, op. cit.,
come testo e la figura di Colin Rowe (Venice, Marsilio, p. 21.
2010), p. 32. 80. R. Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction, op. cit.,
71. C. Rowe, As I Was Saying, op. cit., vol. 1: Texas, Pre- p. 11.
Texas, Cambridge, pp. 6–10. 81. P. Finkelpearl, op. cit., p. 203.
72. Ibid., p. 10. 82. ‘Scully Blasts Yale Building Critics As “Despicable
73. Ibid., pp. 9–10. Scum”’, Yale Daily News (29th September, 1971).
74. C. Rowe, ‘The Yale Mathematics Building’, op. cit., 83. J. Otero-Pailos, Architecture’s Historical Turn: Phenom-
pp. 11–12, 14. enology and the Rise of the Postmodern (Minneapolis,
75. On Venturi, Scott Brown, and the deadpan, see University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
A. Vinegar, ‘The Melodrama of Expression and Inex- 84. J. Ockman, ‘Form Without Utopia’, op. cit., p. 452.