Archinect
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)

Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)

A school of architectural thinking

Los Angeles, CA

Request Information

LECTURE: Charles Jencks

Wed, Mar 16 '16
Los Angeles, CA, US

Charles Jencks: Generic Individualism and a Deeper Architecture

W.M. Keck Lecture Hall

March 16, 2016 at 7:00pm

The reigning style of architecture today is Generic Individualism dominating large practices, global cities, and Starchitects doing icons. The opposite reasons for this are the global marketplace of Bigness versus the desire for individual and local expression. Bigness is a ground of economic warfare and zero-sum negotiation so it is no surprise that after Modernism’s universal generic for everyone and Post-Modernist’s mass-customisation for the individual we have reached the compromised style. One way to achieve deeper character is to focus on content, the underlying idea or that attracts client and architect into a more committed personal relationship: “architecture is the existential act between consenting adults in public,” an art you can stand up for. Architects such as Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron straddle the generic and personal but are still part of the growing commitment to the Time City, the richer tradition of building. As contemporary examples show, it emerges only when client and architect are inspired by shared goals.

Charles Jencks is a renowned cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural critic and historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. His best-selling books include The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, Adhocism, The Architecture of the Jumping Universe and The Architecture of Hope (on Maggie’s Centres). His recent landscape work is summarized in The Universe in the Landscape. Scotland is home to several of his most exciting landscapes including The Garden of Cosmic Speculation and Jupiter Artland, outside Edinburgh, where the ad hoc sculpture Metaphysical Landscapes was exhibited 2011. His most recent project The Crawick Multiverse, 2015, commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch, culminates annually in a three day festival of performance art and public debates with the world leading cosmologists and scientists.

Back to Event List...