Robert Venturi, the American architect who, with his partner Denise Scott Brown, opened the door to postmodernism in the 1960s, has died at the age of 93. In a career that spanned seven decades, Venturi gave voice to what he described as the ‘complexity and contradiction’ inherent in late 20th-century culture and the ‘messy vitality’ of the modern urban landscape.

His maxim ‘less is a bore’ was a witty riposte to one of the central tenets of modernism (Mies’s ‘less is more’) – and his work with Scott Brown attracted controversy during the years of toxic debate about postmodern style, particularly in the 1970s and ’80s. Nevertheless, they always distanced themselves from what they saw as a misreading of their postmodern position. Through their teachings, writings, buildings and urban planning projects, Venturi and Scott Brown sought to revitalise American architecture with a purpose born of the modern movement and shaped by the progressive politics and social upheavals of the 1950s and ’60s.