An architecture of complexity and contradiction, however,
does not mean picturesqueness or subjective expressionism.
A false complexity has recently countered the false
simplicity of an earlier Modern architecture. It promotes an
ki'
ki ;
architecture of symmetrical picturesqueness-which Min-
% ' \ oru Yamasaki calls "serenev-but it represents a new for-
' malism as unconnected with experience as the former cult
of simplicity. Its intricate forms do not reflect genuinely
complex programs, and its intricate ornament, though de- P
pendent on industrial techniques for execution, is dryly
reminiscent of forms originally created by handicraft techniques.
Gothic tracery and Rococo rocaille were not only
expressively valid in relation to the whole, but came from a
valid showing-off of hand skills and expressed a vitality
derived from the immediacy and individuality of the
method. This kind of complexity through exuberance, perhaps
impossible today, is the antithesis of "serene" architecture,
despite the superficial resemblance between them. But
if exuberance is not characteristic of our art, it is tension,
rather than "serenity" that would appear to be so