This is a bit old one, but an excellent article on how architectural complexity compares with body fat, on how architectural complexity needs to be kept at bay and what are some common patterns of increasing the complexity.
This was a read which came out of IETF’s article Reflections on Architecture which, among other things, highlights the differences between emergent complexity (which the author says is ok to have) and architectural complexity (which is not desirable and which is a result of poor design decisions – due to laziness or resource pressures).
I, Geek 