The Story of Post-Modernism

In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, the authority on Post-Modern architecture and culture, provides the defining account of Post-Modern architecture from its earliest roots in the early 60s to the present day. By breaking the narrative into seven distinct chapters, which are both chronological and overlapping, Jencks charts the ebb and flow of the movement, the peaks and troughs of different ideas and themes. The book is highly visual. As well as providing a chronological account of the movement, each chapter also has a special feature on the major works of a given period. The first up-to-date narrative of Post-Modern Architecture - other major books on the subject were written 20 years ago. An accessible narrative that will appeal to students who are new to the subject, as well as those who can remember its heyday in the 70s and 80s.

8 Preface Post-Modernism Resurgent? The Back Story Some Debts Acknowledged And Especially Madelon 16 Part I The Perfect Storm of Post-Modernism The Moral Failures of Modernism The Recurrent Deaths of Modernism The Triumph of Nothingness Revisionists and Le Corbusier Lead the Revolt Complexity and Double-Coding – the First Post-Modern Synthesis The Shape of History – Big, Medium and Small Waves 50 Part II Searching for Difference, Finding Commonality Global Pluralism Radical Eclecticism, the First Response to Homogeneity Contextual Counterpoint Post-Modern Classicism – the Ironic International Style Media Events and Money A Diversion on Cost and Taste James Stirling Synthesises Contextualism and Pluralism The Complexity Paradigm Extended Modernists Becoming Post-Modern Time-Binding Opposites 114 Part III Towards a Critical Modernism What is a City? A Complex Adaptive System Heterotopias and the Heteropolis Expressively Green and Inexpensive Rem Koolhaas, Steven Holl, Toyo Ito and the Porous Route Building Peter Eisenman, the Landform and the Critical-Creative 160 Part IV Complexity and Nature’s Ornament The Complexity Paradigm Fractal Architecture and the Metaphysics of Seamless Continuity Opening Up the White Cube Four Degrees of Ornament 200 Part V The Coming of the Cosmic Icons The Iconic Building and its Discontents The Bilbao Effect Multiple Meaning and Enigmatic Signifiers Worthy Icons? Paranoia, Veiled Themes and Cosmic Iconology Premature Conclusion: the Iconology of Post-Modernism? 248 Notes 260 A Post-Modern Bibliography 266 Picture Credits 268 Index