“The Power of the book lies not so much in the sharpness of the author’s criticism of the present as in the generosity and perceptiveness of his anticipation of the future.” (Architectural Review, Nov 2011)
“Charles Jencks’s summary of the post-modern architectural movement promises clarity and straightforwardness. There is a little of each but not too much.” (Country Living, Nov 2011)
The Story of POST-MODERNISM
Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture
Charles Jencks
In the late 20th century, Post-Modernism was the leading global movement in architecture. It questioned the assumption of a single style and cultural totality and effectively stopped the Modern Movement in its tracks. In 1972, this was symbolised by the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St Louis, Missouri, the first large-scale Modernist housing scheme to be blown up by public demand. Following further detonations, a positive set of traditions flowed into the growing Post-Modern stream, and the pluralist philosophy so active today. Notable were Contextualism and Radical Eclecticism, Post-Modern Classicism and Regionalism, the heteropolis and the new level of public engagement in city development. After 20 years of success, and then the inevitable commercial rip-offs, Post-Modern architecture succumbed to ersatz, debased by fashion, as were other previous leading movements. Yet, in another historical turn at the Millennium, plural cultures sought a richer identity than the Minimalism on offer and the result was the second great flowering of Post-Modernism. Now, much aided by the computer and the World Wide Web, this tradition re-emerged in an outburst of iconic architecture, a patterned ornament driven by digitisation and the complexity paradigm, which has provided the larger ecological and cosmic picture. Ironically, subtracted of its Post-Modern label, this richer architecture again flourishes as the alternative to a mechanistic Modernism.
In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, an authority on the subject, provides a lively and accessible account of Post-Modern architecture from its roots in the early 1960s to the present day. In an evolutionary diagram, Jencks charts the variety of streams that now make up the river delta and discusses the main characters from James Stirling to Frank Gehry and Herzog & de Meuron.
From the Back Cover
The Story of POST-MODERNISM
Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture
Charles Jencks
In the late 20th century, Post-Modernism was the leading global movement in architecture. It questioned the assumption of a single style and cultural totality and effectively stopped the Modern Movement in its tracks. In 1972, this was symbolised by the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St Louis, Missouri, the first large-scale Modernist housing scheme to be blown up by public demand. Following further detonations, a positive set of traditions flowed into the growing Post-Modern stream, and the pluralist philosophy so active today. Notable were Contextualism and Radical Eclecticism, Post-Modern Classicism and Regionalism, the heteropolis and the new level of public engagement in city development. After 20 years of success, and then the inevitable commercial rip-offs, Post-Modern architecture succumbed to ersatz, debased by fashion, as were other previous leading movements. Yet, in another historical turn at the Millennium, plural cultures sought a richer identity than the Minimalism on offer and the result was the second great flowering of Post-Modernism. Now, much aided by the computer and the World Wide Web, this tradition re-emerged in an outburst of iconic architecture, a patterned ornament driven by digitisation and the complexity paradigm, which has provided the larger ecological and cosmic picture. Ironically, subtracted of its Post-Modern label, this richer architecture again flourishes as the alternative to a mechanistic Modernism.
In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, an authority on the subject, provides a lively and accessible account of Post-Modern architecture from its roots in the early 1960s to the present day. In an evolutionary diagram, Jencks charts the variety of streams that now make up the river delta and discusses the main characters from James Stirling to Frank Gehry and Herzog & de Meuron.
About the Author
Charles Jencks is an American architectural theorist, author and landscape architect. He has written widely on Post-Modern and Modern architecture. His bestselling book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977) popularised Post-Modernism in architecture and made him the leading author on the subject in the 1970s and 1980s. With his late wife Maggie Keswick he is the founder of the Maggie Centres, a charity that has become influential for its enlightened provision of uplifting environments for cancer care, designed by some of the world’s most renowned architects. Jencks writes and lectures internationally on architecture and landscape design.
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