Charles Alexander Jencks

The American architecural theorist, historian, practitioner, and designer Charles Jencks came to public attention with his 1977 book The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. After studying at the Universities of Harvard (English Literature and Architecture) and London, he taught at the Architectural Association, London, in 1968, and at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1974. Like Robert Venturi and Reyner Banham (under whom he had studied) before him, he believed that the restrictive architectural and design vocabulary of Modernism was no longer appropriate in an era of rapid change and variety. In his 1973 book Modern Movements in Architecture he had considered the limitations of the visual syntax of the international style with its emphasis on form rather than decoration, on monochrome rather than colour. Jencks believed that the iconography of popular culture and the vernacular was a means of enriching the everyday urban environment. He was involved in a number of design projects including the Tea and Coffee Piazza series for Alessi (1983). Jencks also designed Postmodernist furniture for his own Thematic House in London, designed with architect Terry Farrell from 1979 to 1984. Some of his designs were sold by Aram Designs in London in 1985.

American architect, architectural critic, and historian. His works include many studies in which he defined a range of categories and terms, including Abstract Representation, Action Architecture, Adhocism, Camp, Cardboard Architecture, Ersatz Architecture, the evolution of High Tech which he termed ‘Slick Tech’, Late-Modern Architecture, the Modern Movement, Neo-Vernacular, New Classicism, Pop Architecture, Post-Modernism, Rational Architecture, the Semiological School, Supersensualists, Symbolic Architecture, counterfeit Trompe l'Œil (which he called ‘Superdeception’), and much else. Among his influential books may be mentioned The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1987), Architecture Today (1988), and Post-Modern Architecture: The New Classicism in Art and Architecture (1988). More recently he has suggested that, as the simplistic dogmas of Modernism are being transformed, architecture is responding to a complex interpretation of reality based on biology, mathematics, and cosmology (among much else): that transformation has embraced Blobismus, the biomorph (or Zoömorphic architecture), Organo-Tech, and fragmentation, but his claims that a ‘new paradigm’ has been found in Deconstructivism have failed to convince everybody.

Bibliography

• Jencks (1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1973a, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1980a, 1982, 1982a, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1988a, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1995a, 1995b, 1999, 1999a, 2000, 2000a, 2002, 2003)
• Jencks (ed.) (1983, 1992)
• Jencks &Schaarschmidt-Richter (eds.) 1995)
• Jencks &Toy (eds.) 1999)
• Salingaros et al.(2004)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)