Charles Jencks

Charles Jencks

Jencks' Landform at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Jencks' Cells of Life at Jupiter Artland, near Edinburgh

Charles Alexander Jencks (born June 21, 1939) is an American architecture theorist and critic, landscape architect and designer. His books on the history and criticism of modernism and postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles. He studied under the influential architectural historians Sigfried Giedion and Reyner Banham. Jencks now lives in Scotland where he designs landscape sculpture.

Early years

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Jencks spent his childhood in New England. His father was the pianist and composer Gardner Jencks. Jencks received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature at Harvard University in 1961 and a Master of Arts degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1965. In the mid-sixties, Jencks moved to the United Kingdom, where he now has houses in Scotland and London. He took his studies even further in 1970, receiving his PhD in Architectural History from University College, London. He has lived in the UK ever since.

He has two sons by his first marriage; one works as a landscape architect in Shanghai, while the other works for Jardines in Vietnam. He has two children by Maggie Keswick: John Jencks, a London-based filmmaker, and Lily Clare Jencks, who in 2014 wed Roger Keeling. Jencks married Louisa Fox Pitt as his third wife in 2006, and is thus the stepfather of her daughter Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho.

Landscape architecture and landforms

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, designed in part by Jencks and begun in 1988, was dedicated to Jencks' late wife Maggie Keswick Jencks. Jencks, his wife, 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 species of plants that are pleasurable to the eye, as well as edible. Preserving paths and the traditional beauty of the garden is still his concern, but Jencks enhances the cosmic landscape using new tools and artificial materials. Just as Japanese Zen gardens, Persian paradise gardens, and the English and French Renaissance gardens were analogies for the universe, the design represents the cosmic and cultural evolution of the contemporary world. The garden is a microcosm - as one walks through the gardens they experience the universe in miniature. According to Jencks, gardens are also autobiographical because they reveal the happiest moments, the tragedies, and the truths of the owner and family.

As the garden developed starting in 1988, so too did such sciences as cosmology, and this allowed a dynamic interaction between the unfolding universe, an unfolding science, and a questioning design. Jencks believes that contemporary science is potentially a great moving force for creativity, because it tells us the truth about the way the universe is and shows us the patterns of beauty. As explained in his recent book, The Universe in the Landscape (2011), his work is content-driven. His many landforms are based on the idea that landforming is a radical hybrid activity combining gardens, landscape, urbanism, architecture, sculpture, and epigraphy. Thus the landforms often include enigmatic writing and complex symbolism. Landforms provoke the visitor to interpret landscape on the largest and smallest scale.

Jencks has become a leading figure in British landscape architecture. His landscape work is inspired by fractals, genetics, chaos theory, waves and solitons. In Edinburgh, Scotland, he designed the landform at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with Terry Farrell and Duncan Whatmore of Terry Farrell and Partners. Other works include the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, at Portrack House near Dumfries; Designs for Black Hole Landscape, IUCAA, Pune, India, 2002; Portello Park, Milan 2002-7 (Time Garden 2004-7); Two Cells – Inverness Maggie's Centre, 2003-5; Northumberlandia Landform, 2004; Cells of Life, Jupiter Artland, Bonnington House 2003-2010; Crawick Multiverse, 2006- ; Memories of the Future landform and reclamation project, Altdobern, Germany; Wu Chi, Black Hole Oval Terrace, Beijing Olympic Park, 2008; and The Scottish World, St. Ninians, Kelty, 2003, 2010+.

He is also a furniture designer and sculptor, completing DNA sculptures at Kew Gardens in 2003 and Cambridge University in 2005.

Other works

• Symbolic Furniture, exhibition, Aram Designs, London, 1985.
• Garagia Rotunda, Truro, Massachusetts, 1976-77.
• The Elemental House (with Buzz Yudell), Los Angeles.
• The Thematic House (with Terry Farrell), London, 1979-84.
• DNA Sculpture for James Watson at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, Long Island.
• Landform Ueda, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 1999-2002.
• Matt Ridley, Centre for Life, Newcastle, May 2000.
• The Cell and DNA, Maggie's Centre (Gatehouse), Glasgow, 2002-2003.
• Dividing Cells, Maggie's Centre, Inverness, 2003-2005.
• Wu Chi, Olympic Forest Park, Beijing, 2008.
• Rail Garden of Scottish Worthies, Portrack, Dumfries, 2003-2006.
• Spirals of Time, Parco Portello, Milan, 2002-2012.
• Cells of Life, Jupiter Artland, Bonnington House, Kirknewton, nr Edinburgh, 2003-2010.
• Cosmic Rings of Cern, Cern, Geneva, In Development 2008+ (with Jencks2 ).
• The Scottish World, St Ninians, Kelty, Construction 2010+.
• DoubleWalk, Midpark Hospital, Dumfries, 2010-2012 (with Jencks2 ).
• Northumberlandia, The Lady of the North, Cramlington, 2005-2012.
• Gretna Landmark, Gretna, In Development 2011+ (with Cecil Balmond).
• Holding The Eco-line, Suncheon City, Korea, Construction 2012+ (with Jencks2 ).

A new sculpture is currently planned near Gretna called the Star of Caledonia.

Maggie's Centres

With his late wife, Maggie Keswick Jencks, he was the co-founder of Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres. There are thirteen Maggie's Centres up and running, designed by some of the world's most renowned architects. Based on the notion of self-help and the fact that cancer patients are often involved in a long, drawn-out struggle, the Centres provide social and psychological help in an attractive setting next to large hospitals. Their architecture, landscape, and art are designed to support both patients and caregivers and to give dignity to those who, in the past, often hid their disease. Maggie Keswick Jencks is the author of the book The Chinese Garden (on which her husband also worked).

Architectural writing

Jencks is synonymous with his writings on postmodernism in architecture. He discusses his theories of postmodern architecture in his best-selling book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). Jencks discusses the paradigm shift from modern to postmodern architecture. Modern architecture concentrates on univalent forms such as right angles and square buildings often resembling office buildings. However, postmodern architecture focuses on forms derived from the mind, body, city context, and nature.

His book The Iconic Building examines trend setting and celebrity culture. He writes that 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 do not apply. He says that “enigmatic signifiers” can be used in an effective way to support the deeper meaning of the building.

His book Critical Modernism - Where is Post-Modernism Going? came out in 2007. It is an overview of postmodernism in which Jencks argues that postmodernism is a critical reaction to modernism that comes from within modernism itself. On March 26, 2007, the Royal Academy hosted a debate between Jencks and John N. Gray centered around the book.

The Story of Post-Modernism, Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture, 2011, summarises the history of the movement since its origins in the 1960s.

Jencks has lectured at over forty universities throughout the globe, including in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Milan, Barcelona, and in the US at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale.

Other critical remarks

On January 13, 2012, Jencks offered a critical analysis, called "Notes on the Complexities of Post-Modernism", of the V&A's definitive 2011 exhibition, "Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990," in The Fortnightly Review. Although Jencks was represented in the exhibition, he criticised the curators for trying to "tell the story of Post-Modernism with objects and style alone."

Television

He has appeared on television programmes in the US and UK, and he has 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.
• "The Garden of Cosmic Speculation" (TV Film: 50 minutes) 1998.
• Richard Meier The Frame; Daniel Libeskind; The Spiral, 1999.
• Rebuilding the Palace; Frank Lloyd Wright - Tin Gods, 2002.
• Opening of Scottish Parliament for BBC Scotland, October 9, 2004.
• Melvyn Bragg, The South Bank Show, March 2005.
• John Soane, American TV (Murray Grigor) (USA), May 2005.

Select bibliography

• The Story of Post-Modernism: Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture, Wiley, London, 2011.
• The Universe in the Landscape, Landforms by Charles Jencks, Frances Lincoln, London, 2011.
• 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; Reprinted with a new Introduction and new Post-Script, MIT Press, 2013.

Jencks C. Architecture 2000: predictions and methods. Londres, Studio Vista, 1971

References

• "Cv." Index. Web. December 1, 2010. <http://www.charlesjencks.com/cv.html>.
• "Charles Jencks, Esq." Web. July 29, 2011. <http://www.debretts.com/people/biographies/browse/j/16095/Charles%20Alexander+JENCKS.aspx>.
• "Designs." Index. Web. December 1, 2010. <http://www.charlesjencks.com/designs.html>.
• Jencks, Charles. Modern Movements in Architecture. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973. Print.Jencks, Charles. Post-modern Classicism: the New Synthesis. London: Architectural *Design, 1980. Print.
• Jencks, Charles. The New Paradigm in Architecture: the Language of Post-modernism. NewHaven, CT: Yale UP, 2002. Print.
• Jencks, Charles. The Garden of Cosmic Speculation. London: Frances Lincoln, 2005. Print.
• Jencks, Charles. The Iconic Building. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2005. Print.
• Jencks, Charles. The Post-modern Reader. London: Academy Editions, 1992. Print.

External links

• Charles Jencks website
• Archinect interview (12/2005)
• Books by Charles Jencks
• What is Critical Postmodernism Theory?

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