Robert Venturi's "gentle manifesto, " published as "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" in 1966, called for a reconsideration of the lessons of history and the subtleties of spatialrelationships and enriching ornament of the past.
But the quality that ties all of Stirling's work together is something that only the greatest architects possess: the unique ability to think volumetrically, to conceptualize and visualize all of a building's components and relationships simultaneously in all three dimensions, reorganizing and reinventing those relationships to create brilliant spatial progressions and shifts in perception and experience that elude more ordinary talents.