Superadjacency

Definition

Venturi's term for the superimposition of contrasting elements upon one another — on the same plane, in depth, or across distance — as a compositional technique of contradiction juxtaposed (Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966, ch. "Contradiction Juxtaposed"): "the superadjacencies, the superimpositions of various elements." Its charter: "Super adjacency is inclusive rather than exclusive. It can relate contrasting and otherwise irreconcilable elements; it can contain opposites within a whole; it can accommodate the valid non sequitur; and it can allow a multiplicity of levels of meaning, since it involves changing contexts, seeing familiar things in an unfamiliar way and from unexpected points of view" (pp. 64–73). Venturi reads it as "a variation of the idea of simultaneity expressed in Cubism," explicitly contrasted with "the perpendicular interpenetration of space and form characteristic of the work of Wright."

The degrees of separation are the concept's analytical spine: distant elements related only visually (the propylon before a Greek temple); elements touching and penetrating (Gothic arcades; the "enormous diagonal buttress" crossing the transept arcades at Gloucester; Bramante's layered Belvedere Court; Kahn's "ruins… wrapped around buildings" at the Salk Institute); closely related but not touching (separated linings — the Wieskirche's colonnade, Soane's Insolvent Debtors' Court arch against the wall beyond); and the violent adjacencies and contrasts of scale (Michelangelo's blank window at St. Peter's "juxtaposed with a capital bigger than the window itself"; Gaudí's Casa Güell superimposed vehicle and pedestrian doors). Urban-scale forms: Philadelphia's gridiron superimposed on diagonal avenues ("unique, residual, triangular blocks"); Broadway's diagonal cutting Manhattan's grid into the "squares" that "became events"; the elevated railroad anticipating the multi-level city. Its redundant, rhetorical aspect is structural ornament "about" structure — Michelangelo's Porta Pia as the type-case.

Key Thinkers

• venturi-robert — the concept's author (1966); superadjacency as juxtaposition's inclusive instrument against Modern architecture's rarity of "contradictory juxtapositions of scale."
• Louis Kahn — cited for "wrapping ruins around buildings" and the Salk Meeting House's circles within squares (PAGE NEEDED — see log).
• Michelangelo — the tradition's master: Porta Pia's redundant spanning elements; the St. Peter's scale-contrast; Medici Chapel's furniture-scale ornament against the giant order.

Related Concepts

• contradiction-adapted-and-juxtaposed — superadjacency is juxtaposition's principal technique.
• both-and — the multiplicity of levels superadjacency allows.
• montage — the filmic/collage cousin: elements juxtaposed without transition.
• poche — the lining-layers and residual spaces between superimposed enclosures.
• difficult-whole — the whole that superadjacency's opposites-within-a-whole serves.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• *Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture* (Venturi 1966) — the concept's chapter (pp. 64–73): the charter definition; the degrees-of-separation catalogue (Gloucester, Tomar, Belvedere Court, Salk, Wieskirche, Soane); the scale-contrast catalogue (St. Peter's, Cremona, Cefalù, Didyma); the urban superimpositions (Philadelphia, Manhattan, Sigmond's Berlin); the Porta Pia analysis.

Open Questions

• Superadjacency is presented as rare in Modern architecture "except for some surface treatment and screens." Does the curtain wall and layered-facade practice after 1966 — ventilated skins, double envelopes — fulfill or dissolve the concept?
• The urban cases (triangular blocks, Times Square) arise from infrastructural superimposition rather than design. Can superadjacency be planned, or only recognized and cultivated ("slight twist of context")?