Charles Jencks
Encyclopedia
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
and designer. His books on the history and criticism of Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and Postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
were widely read in architectural circles and beyond.
Born in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
to a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
mother from Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
, he first studied English Literature at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, later gaining an MA in architecture from the Graduate School of Design
Harvard Graduate School of Design
The Harvard Graduate School of Design is a graduate school at Harvard University offering degrees in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design.-History:...
in 1965. He also has a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Architectural History from the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College, London. In the mid-sixties Jencks moved to Scotland where he has lived ever since.
Early Years
Jencks studied under the Modern architectural historians Siegfried Giedion and Reyner BanhamReyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham was a prolific architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and for his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies...
. He first received his BA in English Literature at Harvard University in 1961, later gaining an MA in architecture from the Graduate School of Design in 1965. He took his studies even further and received his PhD in Architectural History from University College, London in 1970. In the mid-sixties Jencks moved to Scotland where he lived with his late wife Maggie Keswick Jencks. He now designs landscape sculpture and writes on cosmogenic art.
Landscape Architecture
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, begun in 1988, was dedicated to Jencks' late wife Maggie Keswick. The garden has such a name because Jencks, Keswick, scientists, and their friends designed the garden based on natural and scientific processes. Jencks goal was to celebrate nature, but he also incorporated elements from the modern sciences into the design. The garden contains a species of plants that are pleasurable to the eye, as well as edible. With a ‘century of extraordinary discovery in biology’ like evolution and deoxyribonucleic acid also known as DNA, and cosmology, this has given birth to a new type of garden design [Cosmic]’. Preserving paths and the beauty of the garden is still evident in the garden except, Jencks enhances the garden using new tools and artificial materials. Just as Japanese Zen gardens, Persian paradise gardens, the English and French Renaissance gardens were analogies of the cosmic universe, the design of the garden represents the cosmic and cultural evolution of the contemporary world. The garden represents a microcosm of the universe. As one walks through the garden they are experiencing the cosmic universe in miniature. According to Jencks gardens are like autobiographies because they reveal the happiest moments, the tragedies, and the truths about a person.As the garden developed since 1988, so too did such sciences as cosmology and this allow a dynamic interaction between the unfolding universe, a progressing science and a question design. Jencks believes that contemporary science is potentially the greatest moving force for creativity of our time because it tells us the truth about the way the universe is. Cosmic passion, the desire both to know and to relate to the universe, is one of the strongest drives in sentient creatures on a par with those which exercise novelists: sex, money, and power. Every creature in the universe tries to increase its knowledge, to figure out what is going on, what will happen next, how things are evolving and the point of this passion how we can relate to this process, fit in with its patterns, celebrate and on occasion, criticize it. The laws of nature may be omnipotent, but they can also be challenged. A garden is a perfect place to try out these speculations and celebrations because it is a bit of man-made nature, a fabricated and ideal cosmic landscape, and a critique of the way the universe is.
Jencks has become a leading figure in British landscape architecture
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
. His landscape work is inspired by fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
s, genetics, chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, waves and soliton
Soliton
In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium...
s. In Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, he designed the Landform at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, holds the national collection of modern art. When opened in 1960, the collection was held in Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Gardens...
in collaboration with Terry Farrell and Duncan Whatmore of Terry Farrell and Partners. These themes are expanded in his own private garden, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation
Garden of Cosmic Speculation
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation is at Portrack House, near Dumfries in South West Scotland. It is a private garden created by Charles Jencks.-Features:...
, at Portrack House near Dumfries
Dumfries
Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
. He is also a furniture designer and sculptor, completing the DNA Sculpture in London's Kew Gardens in 2003.
His late wife, Maggie Keswick Jencks, was the founder of Maggie's cancer caring centres
Maggie's centres
Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres are a network of drop-in centres in Great Britain, whichaim to help anyone who has been affected by cancer. They are not intended as a replacement for conventional cancer therapy, but as a caring environment that can provide support, information and practical advice...
, for which Jencks has designed gardens, and the author of a book on Chinese Gardens.
Architectural Writing
Jencks is synonymous with his writings of Postmodernism in architecture. He discusses his theories of postmodern architecture in his book the Language of Post-Modern Architecture. Jencks discusses the paradigm shift in modern to post-modern architecture. Modern architecture concentrates on univalent forms such as right angles and square buildings often resembling office buildings. However, post modern architecture focuses on forms derived from the mind, body, and nature.His latest book the Iconic Building examines the trend setting and celebrity culture. Jencks discusses why buildings are being designed this way. The reason that our culture seeks the ‘iconic building’ is because it has the possibility of reversing the economic trend of a flagging “conurbation”. An iconic building is created to make a splash, to generate money, and the normal criteria of valuation does not apply. “Enigmatic signifiers” can be used in an effective way to support the deeper meaning of the building.
Jencks has lectured at over forty universities throughout the globe, including Peking, Shanghai, Tokyo, Milan, Barcelona, and in the US at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. In his most recent work he collaborated with the late Maggie Keswick on fractal designs of building and furniture as well as extensive landscape designs base on complexity theory, waves and solitons.
Critical Modernism - Where is Post Modernism going?
Critical Modernism - Where is Post Modernism going is the latest book by Charles Jencks. It is an overview of post-modernism in which Jencks argues that Post modernism is another critical reaction to ModernismModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
that comes from within Modernism itself.
On 26 March 2007, the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
hosted a debate between Jencks and John N. Gray centered around the book.
Other Works
- Symbolic Furniture, exhibition Aram Designs London 1985.
- Garagia Rotunda, Truro, MA 1976-77.
- The Elemental House (with Buzz Yudell), Los Angeles.
- The Thematic House (with Terry Farrell), London, 1979-84.
- Landform in Edinburgh for The Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.
- Matt Ridley, Center for Life, Newcastle, May 2000.
- Designs for Black Hole Landscape, IUCAA, Pune, India, 2002.
Television
Has appeared on television programmes in the US and UK, written two feature films for the BBC (on Le Corbusier and on Frank Lloyd Wright and Michael Graves).- Kings of Infinite Space, 1983;
- Symbolic Architecture, 1985;
- Space on Earth, 1986;
- Battle of Paternoster Square, 1987;
- Pride of Place, 1988;
- A Second Chance, 1989;
- Let the People Choose, 1990. BBC Late show:
- New Moderns, 1990;
- La Villette, 1991;
- Tokyo, 1991 (1992 BP Arts Journalism TV Award);
- Libeskind, Jewish Museum, Berlin, 1991;
- Culture Debate, 1991;
- Frank Gehry and Los Angeles, 1992;
- Philip Johnson, The Godfather 1994.
- BBC: Gardens of the Mind. Television programme and conference organised around work-in-progress, New World View, Tokyo and Kyoto, May 1991.
- TV Film: 50 minutes "The Garden of Cosmic Speculation" 1998.
- Richard Meier The Frame; Daniel Libeskind; The Spiral, 1999.
- Appearances in film: Rebuilding the Palace; Frank Lloyd Wright - Tin Gods, 2002.
- Recreating Eden, Part 2, BBC for Gardens Through The Ages - 200
Select bibliography
- The Architecture of Hope - Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, Frances Lincoln, London, 2010.
- Critical Modernism - Where is Post Modernism going?, Wiley Academy, London, 2007.
- The Iconic Building - The Power of Enigma, Frances Lincoln, London, 2005.
- The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Frances Lincoln Limited, London, October 2003.
- The New Paradigm in Architecture, (seventh edition of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture), Yale University Press, London, New Haven, 2002.
- Le Corbusier and the Continual Revolution in Architecture, The Monacelli Press, 2000
- Architecture 2000 and Beyond, (Critique & new predictions for 1971 book), Academy, Wiley, May 2000
- The Architecture of the Jumping Universe, Academy, London & NY, 1995. Second Edition Wiley, 1997.
- Heteropolis - Los Angeles, The Riots & Hetero-Architecture, Academy, London & NY, 1993.
- The New Moderns, Academy London, Rizzoli, NY 1990.
- The Prince, The Architects and New Wave Monarchy, Academy, London and Rizzoli, NY 1988.
- Post-Modernism, The New Classicism in Art and Architecture, Rizzoli, NY and Academy, London 1987; German edition, 1987, reprinted 1988.
- What is Post-Modernism?, St Martins Press, NY 1986, Academy, London 1986. Second Edition 1988. Third Edition 1989. Fourth Edition 1996.
- Towards A Symbolic Architecture, Rizzoli, NY; Academy, London 1985.
- Kings of Infinite Space, St. Martins Press, NY; Academy, London 1983.
- Abstract Representation, St. Martins Press, NY 1983, Architectural Design monograph, London 1983.
- Skyscrapers - Skycities, Rizzoli, NY 1980, Academy, London 1980.
- Signs, Symbols and Architecture, edited with Richard Bunt and Geoffrey Broadbent, John Wiley, NY and London 1980.
- Late-Modern Architecture, Rizzoli, NY 1980, Academy, London 1980. Translated into German and Spanish.
- Bizarre Architecture, Rizzoli, NY 1979 and Academy, London 1979.
- The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Rizzoli, NY 1977, revised 1978, Third Ed. 1980, Fourth Ed. 1984, Fifth Ed. 1988, Sixth Ed. 1991, Academy Editions London 1977, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1991.
- Modern Movements in Architecture, Anchor Press, NY 1973.
- Adhocism, with Nathan Silver, Doubleday, NY 1972.