The New Paradigm in Architecture: The Language of Postmodernism - Softcover

Jencks, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300095139 ISBN 13: 9780300095135

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The New Paradigm in Architecture tells the story of a movement that has changed the face of architecture over the last forty years. Starting with the counter culture of the 1960s and the call for a complex urbanism by Jane Jacobs and a complex architecture by Robert Venturi, it shows how such demands started to be realised by the 1990s, aided by computer design. Often curved, warped and fractal in shape, it is more convivial, sensuous and articulate than the modern architecture it challenges. Carried forward by architects such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Peter Eisenman, it has also become a leading approach in many schools and offices around the world. The computer is now at its heart but its history, which Charles Jencks traces, is built on the desire for an architecture that communicates with its users, and one based on the heterogeneity of our cities and global culture.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Jencks is a designer and the author of numerous books on the theory and history of architecture. He was formerly visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reviews

Jencks is the principal author on postmodernism in architecture, chiefly through his The Language of Postmodernism, which has gone through six editions and many translations since its first publication in 1977. This book has been standard issue in most schools of architecture for over 20 years; Jencks himself taught architecture at UCLA for many years. The book at hand is a complete rewrite of the original editions, with two new chapters. It updates Jencks's survey of world architecture to include the last ten years of stylistic evolution, climaxing with such galactic masterpieces as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Daniel Liebeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany. Jencks, a transplanted Englishman, is a breezy writer. He glosses over differences in design, preferring to inscribe all schools and styles since the 1960s within the orbits of "multiple coding," "complexity," "heterogeneity," and "pluralism." He is such a readable writer that almost any library collection would benefit from this book. Peter McKee Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300095139
• ISBN 13: 9780300095135
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288