Charles Alexander Jencks | |
|---|---|
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| Born | June 21, 1939 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | October 13, 2019(2019-10-13) (aged 80) |
| Occupation(s) | American cultural theorist, historian |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 4 |
Charles Alexander Jencks (June 21, 1939 – October 13, 2019)[1] was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of theMaggie's Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous in the 1980s as a theorist ofpostmodernism.[2] Jencks devoted time to landform architecture, especially inScotland.[2] These landscapes include theGarden of Cosmic Speculation and earthworks atJupiter Artland outsideEdinburgh. His continuing projectCrawick Multiverse, commissioned by theDuke of Buccleuch, opened in 2015 nearSanquhar.
Born inBaltimore, Maryland, on June 21, 1939, Charles Alexander Jencks was the son of composerGardner Platt Jencks and Ruth DeWitt Pearl. Jencks attendedBrooks School inNorth Andover, Massachusetts, and received hisBachelor of Arts degree in English literature atHarvard University in 1961 and aMaster of Arts degree in architecture from theHarvard Graduate School of Design in 1965. In 1965 Jencks moved to theUnited Kingdom where he had houses in Scotland andLondon. In 1970, Jencks received a PhD inarchitectural history, studying under the noted historianReyner Banham atUniversity College, London. This thesis was the source for hisModern Movements in Architecture (1973) which used semiotics and other literary critical methods to study twentieth century architecture.
Jencks married Pamela Balding in 1961 and the marriage ended in 1973. They had two sons: one works as a landscape architect in Shanghai, while the other works forJardines in Vietnam. He married secondly toMaggie Keswick Jencks, daughter ofSir John Keswick and Clare Elwes, by whom he had two children: John Keswick Jencks, a London-based filmmaker, married to Amy Agnew, and Lily Clare Jencks, who married Roger Keeling in 2014.[3] Jencks married Louisa Lane Fox as his third wife in 2006, and was thus the stepfather of her son Henry Lane Fox and daughterMartha Lane Fox.[4]
Jencks' first architectural design was a studio in the woods, a cheap mass-produced garage structure of $5,000 – titledThe Garagia Rotunda, where he spent part of the summers with his family. The ad hoc use of readymade materials was championed in his polemical text with Nathan SilverAdhocism – the Case for Improvisation in 1971 and 2013. Jencks' architectural designs experimented with ideas fromcomplexity theory.
Jencks designed his own London house in tandem with Maggie Keswick andpostmodern architects includingTerry Farrell andMichael Graves.[5] He named this home "Thematic House".[6]
After his second wife Maggie Keswick Jencks died in 1995, Jencks helped co-found andMaggie's Cancer Caring Centres. 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 bookThe Chinese Garden, on which her husband also worked.
Jencks switched to landscape design as a site for symbolic exploration when Maggie asked Charles to design in the family home and garden in Scotland. The result in 2003 was theGarden of Cosmic Speculation, a series of twenty areas designed around various metaphors such as the DNA garden, Quark Walk, Fractal terrace and Comet Bridge. Further hybrid landforms and symbolic sculptures were built in Edinburgh,Milan,Long Island, New York,Cambridge,Suncheon, South Korea (with Lily Jencks), and other countries, some works from which were published inThe Universe in The Landscape, 2011.
From 2010, Jencks started work on theCrawick Multiverse, a fifty-five-acre site in southwest Scotland and completed it in 2015.
TheMetaphysical Landscape, was an exhibition of sculpture atJupiter Artland, 2011. Jencks later exhibited at the Merz Gallery, Sanquhar 2016.
TheGarden 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 was still his concern, however Jencks enhanced the cosmic landscape using new tools and artificial materials. Just asJapanese Zen gardens,Persian paradise gardens, and the English andFrench 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, so too did such sciences ascosmology, and this allowed a dynamic interaction between the unfolding universe, an unfolding science, and a questioning design. Jencks believed 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 bookThe Universe in the Landscape (2011), his work is content-driven. His many landforms are based on the idea that landform building is a radical hybrid activity combining gardens, landscape,urbanism, architecture, sculpture, andepigraphy. Thus, the landforms often include enigmatic writing and complex symbolism. They provoke the visitor to interpret landscape on the largest and smallest scale.
Jencks became a leading figure in Britishlandscape architecture. His landscape work was inspired byblack holes,fractals, genetics,chaos theory, waves andsolitons. In Edinburgh, Scotland, he designed the landform at theScottish National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration withTerry Farrell and Duncan Whatmore ofTerry Farrell and Partners. Jencks' other works include theGarden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack House nearDumfries; Jencks work with landforms also inspired the creators of Ariel Foundation Park inMount Vernon, Ohio Ted Schnormeier was the Project Manager and Robert J. Stovicek was the architect/designer and together they created thirty plus acres of terraces (landforms). Further inspiration was from the 'Mound building' culture of central Ohio. The Adena, Hopewell and Mound building peoples created 'landforms' that still exist today - long before Jencks, Schnormeier or Stovicek were creating anything; Designs for Black Hole Landscape, IUCAA, Pune, India, 2002; Portello Park, Milan 2002–2007 (Time Garden 2004–2007); Two Cells – Inverness Maggie's Centre, 2003–2005;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+.
Jencks was also a furniture designer and sculptor, completingDNA sculptures atKew Gardens in 2003 and Cambridge University in 2005.
Jencks discussed his theories ofpostmodern architecture inThe Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977), which ran to seven editions. He examined the paradigm shift from modern to postmodern architecture, claiming that 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.
Jencks famously remarked—half-jokingly—that modern architecture “died” on July 15, 1972, at precisely 3:32 p.m. This was the moment when several blocks of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex inSt. Louis,Missouri, were demolished. The uniform concrete buildings of the site had long suffered from social and physical decay, and the area had become notorious for crime. Attempts to rehabilitate the complex had failed. Jencks saw this dramatic event not just as the failure of a specific architectural project, but as a symbol of the deeper problems within modernism as a whole.[7]
According to Charles Jencks, modern architecture was characterized by univalent forms, the repetitive use of simple materials, and a focus on function over form. It followed the metaphor of the machine, aiming to express rationality and order. Architects often held utopian ideals, believing architecture could guide social progress. However, Jencks argues that such designs ignored human needs for diversity, symbolism, and community, which ultimately led to the failure of projects like Pruitt-Igoe.[7]
In 2007, he published'Critical Modernism', the fifth edition of hisWhat is Post-Modernism?
InMeaning in Architecture, 1969, co-edited withGeorge Baird, ahypertext of leading architects and theorists commenting on each other's texts, Jencks addressed issues of who is the ultimate user of architecture, what values should be crystallised in architecture, and what public architecture should represent. This was followed by other anthologies onsemiotics.
Jencks was invited by curatorPaolo Portoghesi to contribute toThe Presence of the Past exhibition at the 1980 Venice Biennale as part of the critic's committee. Jencks also designed a large leaning critic’s pencil sculpture to the "Critic's Corner" of the exhibition hall.
In 1987,Rizzoli published his important interdisciplinary survey of new developments towards a hybrid of classicism or Neo-classicism and modernism in art and architecture "Post-modernism: the new classicism in art and architecture".[8][9]
His bookThe Iconic Building explored trend setting and celebrity culture. He claimed that the reason that modern 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 wrote that “enigmatic signifiers” can be used in an effective way to support the deeper meaning of the building.
His bookCritical 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 tomodernism which comes from within modernism itself.[10][11][12] On March 26, 2007, theRoyal Academy hosted a debate between Jencks andJohn N. Gray centered around the book.[13]
The Story of Post-Modernism, Five Decades of the Ironic, Iconic and Critical in Architecture, 2011, summarise the history of the movement since its origins in the 1960s.
Jencks appeared on television programmes in the U.S. and UK, and he wrote two feature films for the BBC (onLe Corbusier, and onFrank Lloyd Wright and Michael Graves).
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