Built complexity and architectural form

Mies van der Rohe's museum in Berlin, interior

Mies van der Rohe's museum in Berlin, exterior

Place complexity does not correlate directly with built complexity of form. The spatial energy and complexity of Gehry's Guggenheim museum in Bilbao does not guarantee that as a place it is more complex than Mies van der Rohe's serene museum in Berlin.

Complexity in a place has more to do with complexity of program than with spatial or visual effects, but complexity of place is not the same as complexity of program. A large city library, for example, will present a complex functional program for its designers, yet it might still house a fairly simple set of social norms and roles for its users.

• [Nearby: Complexity outline -- The three pairs of terms ]