Robert Venturi - and the postmodernist movement he helped to form - was occasionally a divisive figure. For hardcore modernists, the referencing of prior styles was an affront to the future-facing architecture they had tried to promote. For traditionalists, the ebullient and kitschy take on classicism was an insult to the elegance of the past.
But on closer examination, post-modernism is not about contradiction, but of mixing. It combines the best of both modernism and classicism: it is pragmatic and functional, exhuberant and thoughtful about the past. Venturi was keenly aware of the active role architecture plays in our lives, but rather than intellectualizing it in abstraction encouraged us all to think in more honest terms. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Minimalism is not necessarily a marker of quality; less can indeed be a bore.
This week, we cherish a figure who shone nothing but light on architecture, who saw buildings as the remit of not just architects but of us all.
