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Elie Haddad
To cite this article: Elie Haddad (2009) Charles Jencks and the historiography of Post-
Modernism, The Journal of Architecture, 14:4, 493-510, DOI: 10.1080/13602360902867434
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 14
Number 4
The history of Post-Modern Architecture was to a large extent tied to the name of Charles
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
Jencks, who played an operative role in promoting the movement, much like his predeces-
sor Sigfried Giedion had done for Modern Architecture in the 1930s. Like Giedion, Jencks
was a prolific writer and a protagonist of a radical change in the direction of architecture.
In the thirty-five year period from the appearance of his first book in 1971, Jencks published
more than twenty four works, not counting the ones he edited or co-edited. And like
Giedion, Jencks also attempted to reach a synthesis of opposites, by including disparate
examples within his original ‘canon’, extending it in its last revision to include works by
Eisenman and Tschumi, as Giedion had done by the inclusion of Aalto and Utzon in his
later editions of Space, Time and Architecture. This paper will discuss Jencks’s historiogra-
phy of Post-Modernism by looking at the seminal texts that he wrote from 1970 until
2007, beginning with Architecture 2000 and ending with Critical Modernism. The main
focus of this article is critically to examine his major work, the Language of Post Modernism,
and to trace its evolution as a means of evaluating his contribution to the development of
this movement, as well as to architectural historiography.
self-conscious level in the 1980s). Future tendencies to certain manifestations that had been repressed
could also be projected based on certain assump- by Modernism. For Jencks, the principal interest
tions, such as ‘service-state anonymous architec- through this approach was to break the rigid
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
ture’, at the unself-conscious level at the end of categories in which architecture had been framed,
the twentieth century.4 Surprisingly, the term Post- ie, the spatial and functional paradigms.
Modernism did not yet figure anywhere on this In this, he based his argument on the ‘architectural
chart, despite the fact that some seminal ‘post- sign’, analysed into its two constituents, the signifier,
modern’ works had already appeared on the which he called the ‘expression plane’, and the signi-
scene, namely Venturi’s Mother House and Guild fied, or ‘content plane’. Signifiers give architecture its
House. Within the time-frame in which it should expression, according to Jencks, ie, form, space,
appear we find instead the ‘Neo-Fascist’ tendency surface, colour and texture; while signifieds consti-
characterised by vast urban schemes. There is only tute the set of ideas to which these signifiers directly
a passing reference in the text to the work of or indirectly refer.7 From this he deduced the ‘fluidity’
Venturi, specifically his project for a Football Hall of the semantic field in architecture, which accounts
of Fame, which is considered in the light of contem- for the change in meaning that some forms or build-
porary semiological interests.5 In a structuralist vein, ings undergo through time. For example, the purist
Jencks attempted to account for all the movements architecture of the 1920s may have connoted func-
pervading architecture, from pop culture to trans- tionality and flexibility at that time, but could
port systems along with developments in cyber- connote something altogether different today.8
netics and politics. Semiotics gave a reasonable explanation of the
Structuralist developments in the humanities had change in value and meaning that different works
a great influence on Jencks, who borrowed from undergo through time, confirming the necessity for
semiotics certain key notions that would serve him a more nuanced reading of architecture that disman-
in the formulation of his theoretical framework. tles the strict ideologies of Modernism.
The question of how, and by what process, the
meaning of an architectural work is arrived at, Modern Movements in Architecture
how aesthetic evaluations are made, could not Two years after his first work, Jencks published his
have come at a more propitious time when the Modern Movements in Architecture,9 a text largely
foundations of the Modern Movement were being based on his PhD dissertation written under the
questioned in the context of major social, political supervision of Banham. One can trace in this book
and urban changes. In this context, Jencks co- the source of the ‘six traditions’ outlined in Architec-
edited a book of essays on semiotic interpretations ture 2000. Jencks used the same chart as the histori-
in architecture, under the title Meaning in Architec- cal organiser of the different movements in
ture.6 Jencks used the semantic platform to argue architecture, stressing the role of politics in each
for a multiplicity of meanings and to open the field case, and emphasising the ‘plurality’ of approaches
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within Modernism. He rejected any reductive statement, with Rudolph’s Yale School of Architec-
approach to architecture, attempting a more com- ture as a paradigmatic example, whereas the latter
prehensive reading, even questioning the validity mediates between the private and public realm,
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
of any overarching category such as ‘Modern Archi- growing at a slower pace. Of the latter, Venturi’s
tecture’. Instead he stressed that: Mother House presented a good example, as it
[. . .] architectural traditions are rich and complex in played on the opposition between external sym-
their profusion and any attempt to reduce them to metry and internal complexity. In a positive tone,
some simplistic notion of ‘modern’ or ‘the true Jencks commended Venturi’s work and his mani-
style’ would be myopic and destructive. It is the festo Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
historian’s obligation to search for the plurality of — which ‘effectively challenged the prevailing
creative movements and individuals where he exclusivist arguments for purity and restriction’ —
can find them, and elucidate their creativity.10 for expanding the repertoire of available references
The first chapter of Modern Movements was that a pluralist society should normally have.11
devoted to a survey of the ‘six traditions’, after Although Jencks already betrayed a slight affinity
which Jencks proceeded to examine the work of to these works, his predictions of future trends did
Mies, Gropius, Wright, Le Corbusier and Aalto, not yet lead to their categorisation in a separate
before turning his attention to contemporary group, nor was there any premonition in this text
American and British architects from Paul Rudolph, of the rôle that Venturi and Moore would come to
Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi to Alison and Peter play in the emerging movement, as they were
Smithson and James Stirling. Also covered were a lumped together with Sert, Kahn and even Kall-
number of international figures such as Niemeyer, mann, McKinnell and Knowles, whose controversial
Bakema, van Eyck, Rogers and Tange. More signifi- Boston City Hall was paradoxically included in the
cantly, this is the first text in which Jencks discussed ‘non-camp’ group while in fact it exhibited the
the work of architects who would later play a major same symptoms of a ‘univalent’ approach as
role as ‘post-modernists’, namely Venturi and Rudolph’s Yale School.
Moore. In a chapter that divided American architec- The book ended with a manifesto-style postscript
ture of that period into two categories, ‘camp’ entitled ‘Architecture and Revolution’ in which
and ‘non-camp’, the former including figures like Jencks reminded the reader of the problematic
Paul Rudolph, Edward Durell Stone, Eero Saarinen condition of architecture, a condition which
and even Bruce Goff, Jencks relegated Venturi and resulted from the contemporary loss of faith in
Moore to the non-camp group, along with Jose both politics and religion. In the midst of this
Luis Sert and Louis Kahn. ‘crisis’, few architects had begun to search for a
He vaguely articulated the difference between way out, efforts that, for Jencks, should take note
‘camp’ and ‘non-camp’, defining the former as of the historical forms of organisation which have
an architecture that relies heavily on a univalent historically promoted a positive public realm, such
496
as the Greek agora, the Roman forum and the goals. He gave the example of Mies as the
Mediaeval communes. Jencks concluded with a epitome of the Modernist failure, illustrating it by
radical statement, reversing Le Corbusier’s famous the semantic confusion and impoverishment that
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the cutbacks. Buildings representing consumer behind it. Venturi, like the typical modernist that
values generate the investment.18 he wishes to supplant, is adopting the tactic of
For Jencks, the social goals of the Modern Move- exclusive inversion. He is cutting out a whole
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
ment had been hijacked by commercial interests, area of architectural communication, duck build-
emptying their forms of their original content. ings, (technically speaking iconic signs), in order
Faced with consumerism in the West and state to make his preferred mode, decorated sheds
capitalism in the East, the contemporary architect (symbolic signs) that much more potent.20
had no choice, if he/she wanted to re-establish a Jencks further explained the subtlety of metaphors
certain purpose for his/her work, but to use a and their nuances:
language understood by the local culture. The [. . .] the more the metaphors, the greater the
heroic attempts of the Modernists to establish a drama, and the more they are slightly suggestive,
universal language expressive of and conducive the greater the mystery. A mixed metaphor is
to greater social goals had clearly failed. strong, as every student of Shakespeare knows,
After this ‘diagnosis’ of all that went wrong in but a suggested one is powerful.21
architecture, Jencks elaborated in the second Thus, a hot-dog stand that looks like a giant hot-
chapter the ‘modes of architectural communi- dog, definitely communicates at a certain level,
cation’, based to a large degree on his earlier but does not constitute a rich source of metaphors.
interpretations of semiotics in architecture.19 It is a duck, but an obvious one. An example of a
Jencks started with the first element of architectural more sophisticated duck with suggestive metaphors
language, the ‘metaphor’, with a number of illus- is the TWA terminal by Saarinen, which is evocative
trations showing how architectural works are invari- of ‘flight’ through its formal and spatial articula-
ably read by architects and the public at large. The tions. Le Corbusier’s Chapel in Ronchamp constitu-
example of the Sydney Opera House is instructive tes one of the most effective examples of
for its abundance of metaphors, leading to various suggested metaphor. This chapel, which alternately
representations of the building in academic circles evokes a ship, hands joined in prayer, a nun’s hat or
as well as in the public press. Jencks articulated his an actual duck, is rich in visual codes that operate at
distinct position, different from Venturi’s, which is a subconscious level, unlike obvious ‘signs’, such as
appreciative of both ‘ducks’ and ‘decorated sheds’ the hot-dog stand:
as necessary for communication: Le Corbusier only admitted to two metaphors,
Clearly the Sydney Opera House is a duck for both of which are esoteric: the ‘visual acoustics’
Venturi, and he wishes to underplay this form of of the curving walls which shape the four horizons
expression because he thinks it has been over- as if they were ‘sounds’ [. . .] and the ‘crab shell’
done by the modern movement. I would disagree form of the roof. But the building has many
with this historical judgement, and take even more metaphors than this, so many that it is over-
greater exception to the attitudes implied coded, saturated with possible interpretations.22
498
Jencks discussed also the other components of other works by Kurokawa and Kikutake, Lucien
architectural communication: words, syntax and Kroll, Ralph Erskine and Antonio Gaudi. Yet this
semantics. He identified the words of this language coming style which Jencks characterised as one of
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
with elements such as doors, windows, columns, ‘radical eclecticism’ had not fully appeared yet:
partitions, etc., and the significance that these Several architects are moving beyond modern
elements get from their position in their physical architecture in a tentative way, either adapting a
context, as well as the code that the interpreter mixture of modernist styles, or mixing these
has at his disposal to understand them, differentiat- with previous modes. The results as yet are not
ing between iconic, symbolic and indexical signs.23 convincing enough to speak of a totally new
A good example of the manipulation of combi- approach and style; they are evolutionary, not a
nation rules can be found in Michael Graves’s early radical departure. And it is the nature of the
work, while Eisenman’s syntactical games ‘dazzle case that practicing architects now in their
the eye, confuse the mind, and ultimately signify forties and trained in modernism can only make
for him the process that generated them’.24 hesitant, evolutionary changes. When the
Clearly, for Jencks, the reduction of language to present students of architecture start practicing,
one of its parameters, ie, syntactics or semantics, we should begin to see much more convincing
fails to produce a fully communicative work. examples of radical eclecticism, because it is
Modern architecture had developed its own seman- only this group which is really free enough to try
tic code, albeit reduced to a set of personal styles, their hand at any possible style –ancient,
each characteristic of a different architect. This is modern, or hybrid.26
what led to monotonous languages that did not Jencks nevertheless saw the first manifestations of
express the plurality of styles.25 this new style in works that display an ‘ad-hoc’27
While the first two chapters were basically recapi- approach to form, combining different styles and
tulations of earlier ideas that he had already covered sources in a new creative synthesis. He singled out
in his previously publications, the third chapter was one key building in this development, Lucien
the most significant, for it announced the coming Kroll’s Medical Faculty building in Louvain, which
of a new architecture, a ‘Post-Modern Architecture’. resulted from a collaborative design process that
This chapter began with another evolutionary tree, included architect, students and construction
this time charting the growth of this new tradition, workers (Fig. 1). Other examples came from the
from 1955 to 1980. This was a concise chapter of work of Robert Venturi, Bruce Goff and Charles
fourteen pages at the time of the first edition, and Moore. Some of the architects previously labelled
did not yet include any significant illustrations of in opposite ‘camp’ and ‘non-camp’ categories
the new style, with the exception of Venturi’s were now lumped together as part of a single move-
Brandt House and Stern’s ‘Residence for an Aca- ment. Jencks concluded by citing the example of
demic Couple’. These were discussed along with one architect who had succeeded in mastering this
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(Photograph: Tim
Borremans.)
‘plurality’ of languages, Antonio Gaudi. In what substantially rewrote the third chapter in the later
seems to be like a retroactive historical legitimisa- editions, updating its examples and significantly
tion, akin to Giedion’s return to the Baroque or revising the content. Thus, the originally venerated
Banham’s to Futurism, Jencks returned to Gaudi as example of Gaudi was downplayed in subsequent
one of the masters of this new movement in ges- editions, and the illustrations of his work as well as
tation. The contemporary architect was thus sum- the discussion of the symbolism of Casa Battlo
moned to follow Gaudi’s example, and to develop went missing. The third chapter was significantly
a multi-lingual capacity to interpret cultural trends expanded with a plethora of examples of what con-
like a good anthropologist or journalist.28 stituted now the ‘official’ canon of Post-Modernism,
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture went exemplified in the work of Robert Venturi, Aldo
into several editions, each time changing the cover Rossi, James Stirling, Michael Graves, Robert Stern,
to reflect better the new style (Figs 2, 3). Jencks Charles Moore, Hans Hollein, Mario Botta and
500
Antoine Predock, amongst others. Robert Venturi the other, the former being more refined and
was given an honorary position in the later editions eloquent than the latter.30
as the architect who designed the first ‘anti-monu- Jencks’s enthusiasm for the new direction taken
ment’ of Post-Modernism, the ‘Nurses & Dentists by American and European architecture at the
Building’ in Philadelphia.29 Jencks’s shift was appar- beginning of the 1980s, with the seminal work of
ent, yet the categorisation of what fits into Post- Graves, Moore, Stirling and Hollein, confirmed the
Modernism remained elusive, although the trend attribution of the ‘post-modern’ epithet to this
was more and more centred around what he modern version of neo-classical architecture.31 He
called ‘Free-Style Classicism’, ie, a modern version would re-define Post-Modernism in his third
of neo-classicism. He eventually tried to set the edition as ‘an eclectic mix of traditional or local
standards for this new style, ranging between a codes with Modern ones’, celebrating the conver-
‘haute vulgarisation’ at one end and ‘pastiche’ at sion of one-time Modernists like James Stirling to
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the new creed. And whereas he had previously been wryly refuted the detractors who, since 1982,
critical of certain figures like Charles Moore, he had been announcing the imminent death of post-
reversed his judgement at a later phase, lauding modernism.35 Jencks conceded that movements
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
his Piazza d’ Italia in New Orleans as a major monu- do reach an end, and that Post-Modernism would
ment of Post-Modernism.32 Even the use of certain not escape this predicament, but unlike the previous
types of clichés became a cause for celebration, as dogmatic movements, its death could be a liberating
in Hans Hollein’s Austrian Travel Agency where a event which would free it once again from any
cocktail of signifiers refers to various destinations: dogmatism. For him, the central ideology of Post-
[. . .] ruined columns impaled by chrome shafts Modernism remained ‘pluralism’, which still
signify travel in Greece and Italy; desert travel is expressed the condition of the present times. In
communicated by bronze versions of the palm this essay, Jencks threw the blame for this move-
columns at the Brighton Pavilion; India by a ment’s lapse into historicism on Paolo Portoghesi
bronze solar topee, theatre tickets by a stage and Robert Stern, forgetting his own role in this:
curtain, air travel by birds and, ironically, the [. . .] Stern and Portoghesi, through their writing,
place where one pays for it all, the cashier’s architecture and exhibitions, have led the move-
desk, is signified by the outline of a Rolls Royce ment towards the historicism to which much of
radiator grille. All of this is sheltered under a the public—sadly—reduces it. While their work
light-filled coffered vault reminiscent of the local often has a creative integrity, the genre that
Post Office Savings Bank, the magnificent follows it is frequently commercialised cliché.36
‘Modern’ space Otto Wagner built in 1906.33 In the course of the same essay, commenting on his
As Post-Modernism developed throughout the rival Heinrich Klotz’s survey of Post-Modernism,37
1980s, other buildings would come to occupy Jencks disagreed with Klotz’s inclusion of the work
centre stage as eminent examples of the new of Rem Koolhaas, John Hejduk and Richard Meier
style, displacing previous ones. Thus, Stirling’s Stutt- in the history of Post-Modernism, despite their
gart Museum and Graves’s Humana Headquarters in ironic and revisionist interpretations of Modern-
Kentucky became the latest models, comparable to ism.38 Jencks did not seem to see, as Klotz did, the
the Bauhaus in Dessau and the Villa Savoye, in the wider manifestations of this movement, which
case of Modernism.34 could be expanded to include such examples. He
The seventh edition called for a careful reposition- would nevertheless make a major reversal on this
ing, lest the new style fall into ‘kitsch’, as larger same issue in the final edition of the book.
commissions, especially by corporate giants like If the Modern Movement died tragically on 15th
Disney, began to swamp the practices of Post- July,1972, as Jencks had earlier claimed, no specific
Modern architects. This fear of the end prompted date could be pinned down for the death of Post-
Jencks to preface his edition of 1991 with the Modernism, a process which began at the end of
ominous essay ‘Death for Rebirth’, in which he its golden period, the 1980s, but was protracted
502
Figure 4. Cover of The over the next decade. This translated into the
Architecture of the waning of this style in most major cities, and the
Jumping Universe.
rise of new trends from deconstruction to other
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
(# Academy/Wiley.)
forms of post-modernism. This change was
reflected around 1990 in some major review maga-
zines, especially Architectural Design, which gradu-
ally shifted its attention from Post-Modernism to
new themes such as Deconstruction (1988, 1989,
1990), New Spirit in Architecture (1991), Free
Space Architecture (1991) and other topics. Still,
Jencks maintained his faith. In one of the last
issues of Architectural Design to be dedicated to
Post-Modernism,39 which ironically came only one
year after the epilogue issue by Papadakis,40
Jencks reiterated his continued proclamation of
faith in the movement.
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Figure 5. Peter
Eisenman’s Aronoff
Center. (Photograph by
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
the Author.)
revised to accommodate additions and changes. thus opens the possibility for a diverse and
Thus, the eclecticism of the early post-modernists inclusive reading of architectural works that fall
like Venturi and Stirling could be seen in continuity within this new paradigm, under the different
with the earlier works of Gehry, which then labels of ‘organic’ architecture (Bruce Goff),
abruptly shifted to the new language first wit- ‘green architecture’ (James Wines/SITE), ‘Organi-
nessed in the Vitra Museum and later expounded Tech’ (Calatrava), ‘cosmic architecture’ (Isozaki,
in the Disney Concert Hall and the Bilbao Mozuna, Hasegawa) and the ultimate ‘cosmogenic
Museum.43 The principle of complexity which is architecture’ of a completely rehabilitated Peter
derived from this new conception of the universe Eisenman (Fig. 5).44
504
Somewhat reminiscent of Giedion’s work, the text the main heading of The New Paradigm in Architec-
of The Architecture of the Jumping Universe is ture.47 Here, the author made a final move to
replete with re-affirmations of the necessary link redraw the lines of the movement, assimilating ret-
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
between the new aesthetic movement and the con- roactively some works that he had previously dis-
temporary scientific theories of the universe, within missed as being unrelated to Post-Modernism. In
a ‘space-time’ conception that presents itself as a this edition, Libeskind’s Jewish Museum figures pro-
more contemporary and adequate representation minently on the front cover, displacing the last post-
of the cosmic order than the so-called ‘modernist’ modernist work to occupy the previous edition’s
theories. This attempt to legitimise aesthetic the- cover, Predock’s Fine Arts Center at Arizona State
ories as integral components of a more universal, University.
scientific order go back to Renaissance theories of The apologetic started off this time with a refram-
universal harmony, and have been central to twenti- ing of the basic premises of the movement, in a tone
eth-century thought, especially in Giedion’s work. that brings to mind his mentor Banham’s premoni-
Jencks reaffirmed in his own way that: tory projections:
There is nothing more important today than My argument is that we are at the beginning of a
understanding the key role of complexity in the new way of constructing architecture and
universe. Over time it builds everything we value conceiving cities, that it has grown out of the
and love. [. . .] Post-Modern movement in the sciences and else-
In this sense we are built into and out of cosmic where, but that it has not yet grown up. The new
time; we are not alienated from the universe, as paradigm exists but somewhat ambiguously. It is
the Existentialists had it, but are absolute cosmic past the birth pangs, but still in infancy, and
gestation.45 there is much to be decided on how it is going
Concluding, using Giedion’s ‘space-time’ terminology: to develop and mature.48
Since 1983, the meter has been redefined by The same arguments for the ‘new paradigm’ which
international agreement as the distance that appeared in The Architecture of the Jumping
light travels through a vacuum, i.e. in 1/ Universe are presented here again, as legitimising
299,792,458 of a second. Thus the ultimate unit factors for this shift which started around 1960
of space is derived from an atomic unit of time — with Jane Jacobs and Robert Venturi. In this sense,
a convergence of space-time universality [. . .]46 Jencks reaffirmed the continuity between the earlier
Post-Modernism, now labelled ‘Complexity I’, and
The New Paradigm in Architecture the later developments, labelled ‘Complexity II’.49
The Architecture of the Jumping Universe appears to He also took this opportunity to draw a brief historio-
have played the role of the midwife for the final graphy of this work, acknowledging the different
comeback of The Language of Post-modernism, changes it went through as a result of a ‘ceaseless
with its noticeable reduction to a subtitle under critical dialogue with the imminent past’.50
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The transition towards the last two chapters Conclusion: the return of Modernism?
dedicated to the ‘New Paradigm’ occurs smoothly In his latest, and perhaps not his last book, Jencks
as a subsection is now added at the end of the attempted once again to redraw the lines and
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
third chapter of the previous edition, entitled redefine the ‘new paradigm’, this time by an oper-
‘Heteropolis’.51 Under ‘Heteropolis’, we find the ation that brings back Modernism into the picture
work of Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and other alongside its antithesis, Post-Modernism, within a
Dutch architects, as well as Alessandro Mendini great unifying synthesis. This new paradigm is
and Ashton, Raggatt, McDougall. Whereas Gehry’s given the title Critical Modernism and is seen to
eclecticism makes it easy, or even imperative, to be in succession to Post-Modernism, as can be insi-
draw his work in as a major representative of this nuated from the subtitle: where is postmodernism
transition between the two phases of Post-Modern- going?53
ism, the inclusion of Koolhaas requires a more One finds here again all the issues with which
nuanced explanation, as he is seen to waver in a Jencks had constantly struggled, rendered in a jour-
grey zone: nalistic style that picks up various manifestations
His projects, because they are radical mixtures of and happenings in culture, art, science, to empha-
urban functions, are even Post-Modern when sise this paradigmatic shift now affecting the
they exploit metaphor, symbolism and the world. Implicitly, there survives in Jencks a ‘moder-
radical diversity of function. But his intentions nist’ principle that sees these various and often
remain ironic and descriptive about amnesia and conflicting phenomena to be all part of one
the tabula rasa; as an ultra-Modernist he looks ‘complex’ order. But what were the reasons for
to exploit, not counter, these forces.52 this shift in nomenclature? Was it the realisation
The concluding chapters explore the ‘new para- that Post-Modernism had finally run its full course,
digm’ in architecture, with its major example being and that Modernism was now back with more
Peter Eisenman’s latest work, the Aronoff Center vigour on the architectural scene? Jencks gave
in Cincinnati, as well as projects by Greg Lynn, UN some of the reasons behind this new formulation:
Studio, Calatrava and others. The second manifes- Such are the movements under way towards a
tation of the new paradigm is represented under more hybrid, integrated world — a mongrelised
‘Fractal Architecture’ featuring in this case globe from one point of view — a world in con-
Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, in addition to works stant and instantaneous communication across
by Foreign Office Architects, Coop Himmelblau, its boundaries. At the same time, I will argue,
and the ‘Fluid Fractals’ of Frank Gehry best trans- there is also at work a hidden tradition of reflec-
lated in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which tion and reaction to all this cross-border modern-
is compared in its metaphorical richness to the ization, the Critical Modernism of my title. Unlike
Chapel of Ronchamp. many of the other trends and agendas discussed
506
here, this is not yet a conscious movement but representations of this new complex ‘order’, some
an underground or tacit process, the activity of of which, by the author himself, veer towards the
modernism in its constantly reflexive stage, a utterly naı̈ve.56
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stage that looks back critically in order to go In the end, the most appropriate paradigm to
forward.54 reflect the contemporary condition seems to be
Both Modernism and Post-Modernism can be seen that of ‘critical modernism’, a ‘tradition’, according
now in a new light, which accepts their accomplish- to Jencks, which has been continuous and implicit
ments as well as their failures, in a new synthesis. within modernism, and which had appeared more
Jencks further explained: explicitly since the 1960s.57 The main aspects or
Now that post-modernism is no longer a runaway levels of this new ‘critical modernism’ are three: criti-
fashion or despised corrupter of the modern faith, cal iconography, critical coding and critical spiritual-
it is easier to attend to its peculiar charm and ity. While critical iconography is challenged to deal
quality. This is the taste for the hybrid moment, poetically with the reinvention of a language that
the instant of creation, when two different represents the current cosmology, critical coding
systems are suddenly conjoined so that one can would reflect on the ‘codes of expression’, a
appreciate both sides of the equation and their concept that appears to resurrect the old semiotic
union.55 planes of semantics and syntax.58
In other words, the moment appeared ripe for an The third level, ‘critical spirituality’, is a rather new
historical reconciliation between these two move- addition to the theoretical framework. Here Jencks
ments, which for Jencks had been engaged in a posited what appears to be an original thought,
constant tug of war since the 1970s, in which he the overcoming of the historical dichotomies of
was of course one of the principal instigators. body/mind and matter/spirit to result in a new
Beyond the first two chapters that go over the conception that brings together these opposites
well-rehearsed discussions of Post-Modernism in into a comprehensive unity.
its architectural and artistic manifestations, it is the Giedion, in his conclusion to the last edition of
subsequent chapters that form the thesis of this Space, Time and Architecture, had voiced a similar
book, projecting a ‘universal’ history as the foun- emotional appeal that stressed the necessity of
dation for its theoretical argument. Here, various reaching towards a union of art and science, both
facts on social and political transformations, global tools of the human intellect, and for the restoration
economic changes and contemporary scientific the- of the rôle of ‘feeling’ in human work, along with
ories are combined with commentaries on current ‘thinking’.59 Giedion’s ‘feeling’ may be the other
political and environmental issues such as the War term for Jencks’s ‘spiritual’. Jencks may be seen to
in Iraq and Global Warming, to reaffirm the have had similar aims to Giedion, despite their differ-
complex and ‘heterarchic’ nature of our world and ences in depth and style, as well as historical
to argue for appropriate symbolic or iconographic agenda.60 And like Giedion, even exceeding him,
507
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Jencks was equally guilty of an ‘operative’ rôle in publications. Among his other works are: Adhocism:
which history was submitted to a subjective will The Case for Improvisation (New York, Doubleday,
that manipulates various architectural elements in 1972), written with Nathan Silver; Modern Movements
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
order to legitimise specific historical constructs; in Architecture (New York, Anchor Press, 1973); Le
Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture
constructs that appear at first to be historically deter-
(Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press,1973); The
mined and inevitable, only to reveal later under the
Language of Post-Modern Architecture (first published
pressures of unexpected historical developments
in 1977 — New York, Rizzoli — with many subsequent
their openness to revision and re-codification. The editions); Architecture Today (New York,
notion that Architecture should always reflect the H. N. Abrams,1982); The Architecture of the
tendencies of its time was a central principle in Jumping Universe (London, Academy, 1995); Ecstatic
Giedion’s understanding of architecture and Architecture (New York, Academy Editions, 1999);
appears also as a constant principle in Jencks’s Iconic Building (New York, Rizzoli, 2005); Critical
various turns and shifts. Modernism: where is postmodernism going? (London,
Charles Jencks has definitely left his mark on the Wiley, 2007).
history of architecture as the main apostle of Post- 2. See Nigel Whiteley’s Reyner Banham: Historian of the
Immediate Future (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press,
Modernism, as much as Banham is remembered
2002), pp. 268 –274, 373– 377.
for his championing of a machine aesthetic and
3. Reyner Banham, ‘Two by Jencks: The Tough Life of the
Giedion for his definition of Modernism. Yet for
Enfant Terrible’, AIA Journal (December, 1980). In a
some historians and critics, his lack of consistency sense, Banham’s problematic relationship with his
puts him in the category of sensational reporters father-figure and mentor, Nikolaus Pevsner, would be
rather than serious historians. Also, his reading of reflected in a similar relationship between him and
architecture, restricted to a visual ‘decoding’ that Jencks.
leaves issues of construction and technical develop- 4. Jencks, Architecture 2000, op. cit., pp. 46–47.
ments aside, leaves a lot to be desired. In contrast to 5. Ibid., p. 114: Venturi is mentioned in the ‘Idealist
Giedion and Banham, Jencks did not have the same Tradition’ chapter along with James Stirling and Jose
patience with history. His inner drive towards pre- Luis Sert.
6. C. Jencks and G. Baird, eds, Meaning in Architecture
monition and his desire to remain at the vanguard
(New York, Braziller, 1970).
of historic developments may be the fatal reason
The first section of this book contained five seminal
behind his constant shifts, which can be read as a
essays by Charles Jencks, Françoise Choay, Gillo
sign of superficiality. But that may be again a charac- Dorfles and Geoffrey Broadbent, whilst the second
teristic of our times. and third parts contained a number of essays by
George Baird, Aldo van Eyck, Kenneth Frampton,
Notes and references Joseph Rykwert and others.
1. Architecture 2000: Prediction and Methods (London, 7. ‘The Architectural Sign’, in Signs, Symbols and
Studio Vista, 1971), was the first in a long series of Architecture, edited with Richard Bunt and Geoffrey
508
Broadbent (New York and London, John Wiley, 1980), 18. Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture
pp. 71– 118. (1977), op. cit., p. 35.
8. Ibid., p. 76. 19. See his article in Meaning in Architecture, 1970,
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collaboration of Charles Jencks. See Charles Jencks, 44. Jencks had chastised Eisenman only a few years before
‘The Presence of the Past’, in Domus, #610 (1980), for his obscure and illegible architecture in the course
pp. 9 –15. For a critique of the Venice Biennale of of waging his last-ditch attack on the return of
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
53. Critical Modernism: where is postmodernism going?, laws generate. The computer is particularly adept at
op. cit. This publication is also a complete re-working revealing these patterns of nature, the fractals,
of an earlier one which evolved out of an essay given strange attractors, complex morphological shapes of
The Journal of Architecture 2009.14:493-510.
at a conference in 1985 during the heyday of ‘classical’ folding, and close-packing.’ The primary example of
Post-Modernism, and published as What is Post Mod- this approach can be found in the work of Eisenman,
ernism? (London, Academy Editions, 1986). most recent of which is his project for a city of
54. Jencks, Critical Modernism, op. cit., p. 8. culture in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, which
55. Ibid., p. 10. ‘exemplifies the cross-coding of critical modernism,
56. See, for instance, Jencks’s own landscape projects mixing at least five codes evident in the drawings
‘Symmetry Break Terrace’, the ‘Universe Cascade’ with material codes related to the site and construc-
and the ‘DNA’: Jencks, Critical Modernism, op. cit., tion’: ibid., pp. 187– 192.
pp. 175– 6, 185. 59. Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time & Architecture: The
57. Ibid., p. 182. Growth of a New Tradition, 5th Edition (Cambridge,
58. Jencks thus explained this second aspect in terms that Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967).
open the possibility for the inclusion of fractals and 60. Thomas Schumacher was one of the first critics to
other forms: make a comparison between Giedion and Jencks in
‘The second level of a critical modernism concerns a his review of The Language of Post-Modern Architec-
reflective response to the codes of expression. Today ture in JAE, v.32, n.3 (February, 1979), pp. 30–31.
this might mean an unusual mixture of science and Schumacher noted the discrepancy between Jencks’s
visual languages, or design codes based on the inconsistent rhetoric and Giedion’s more logical argu-
myriad patterns of organization that the fundamental mentation.