L'inevitabile complessità dell'architettura

After almost fifty years from the publication of Complexity and contradiction in architecture (1966), manifesto of the architectural postmodernism by Robert Venturi, it seems that of the complexity described in the essay not remain but the inevitable contradictions, whereas contemporary architecture is becoming ever more complex. In fact, the increasing level of complexity of the contemporary society is matched by an equal response in terms of instruments, codes and languages that chase the understanding while they represent the appearance. Contemporary society shows the highest level of complexity mainly in the cities, where the numerous architectural antonyms manifest themselves in terms of: project of city and project of buildings; new and old; memory and oblivion; company and sustainability; distance and proximity; space and place; landscape and territory; man and environment; individual and society; time and duration; form and existence; and so on up to embrace every aspect of human life. How architecture, a mean of construction of the artificial reality as well as knowledge of the natural one, can be a response to the requests of complexity? How to direct the inevitable complexity of the architecture?