After 4 decades I (BMcC[18-11-46-503]) still have not found the righ words to express my fear, loathing, disgust and what all else [fill in the blank] concerning Mr. Robert Venturi, AIA (1925-2018). He was worse than what Adolf Loos diagnosed in his essay "Ornament and Crime: a degenerate or criminal in the 20th century who ornamented things. Mr. Mr. Venturi would have been harmless had he just made kitsch for willing buyers. But his proactive agenda was to turn everything into kitsch: he criticized modernist architects for trying to raise the cultural level of the masses. Even an effete snob like William F. Buckley Jr. just looked down his nose at the uncouth but never tried to make sure they stayed that way and pull everything else down to their level for profit and fun.

Mr. Ventri invented clown architecture and promoted architectural cynicism. "I like elements which are hybrid rather than 'pure', compromising rather than 'clean', distorted rather than 'straightforward', ...perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as 'interesting'.... A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning and combinations of focus: its space and its elements become readable and workable in several ways at once. But an architecture of complexity and contradiction has a special obligation to the whole: Its truth must be in its totality.... More is not less." ("Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture", pp. 22-3)

Fine, then I will mix up Bobby's mommy's menstrual blood with the house her little boy made for her. If she was post-menopausal, I could procure a substitute to a butcher shop. Unfortunately, I think my meaning may be clear enough that Mr. Venture would not celebrate it, or would he? What is your pleasure, Mr.Venturi: a diaper or a sanitary pad?