This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, by Robert Venturi. Often identified as the first postmodern manifesto-although Venturi has disavowed this attribution-Complexity and Contradiction had a significant impact on architecture culture as much for what it did not do as for what it did. As a "gentle manifesto," it eschewed the polemics and vehemence of earlier modernist manifestoes and took a more personal tone. Statements beginning "I like . . ." or "I find . . ." shifted Venturi's treatise from a polemic to what he called an "apologia-an explanation, indirectly, of my work" (18). Far from the fervent proclamations of early twentieth-century manifestoes, the mildness of Venturi's tone concealed the radical nature of his program to dismantle "orthodox Modern architecture."
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