It is no wonder that Venturi's buildings have not
found ready acceptance; they have been both too new and,
for all their "accommodation" of complexity, too truly
simple and unassuming for this duent decade. They have
refused to make much out of nothing, to indulge in flashy
gestures, or to pander to fashion. They have been the
product of a deeply systematic analysis in programmatic
and visual terms and have therefore required a serious
reorientation in all our thinking. Hence the symbolic image
which prepares our eyes to see them has not yet been
formed. This book may help in that regard. I believe that
the future will value it among the few basic texts of our
time-one which, despite its anti-heroic lack of pretension
and its shift of perspective from the Champs-ElysCes to
Main Street, still picks up a fundamental dialogue begun in
the twenties, and so connects us with the heroic generation
of modern architecture once more.