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'Her architecture is elegant, ecological and always intriguing' — Architect Anupama Kundoo wins 2021 RIBA Charles Jencks Award

2021-08-17T16:53:00-04:00

The RIBA Charles Jencks Award has been given to architects and firms who have made "a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture." This prestigious award has been presented to Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril of Ensamble Studio (2019), Herzog & de Meuron (2015), and Eric Owen Moss (2011) to name a few.

The notable shortlist of nominated architects includes MASS Design Group, Emilio Ambasz, Alexander Brodsky, Nigel Coates, Beatriz Colomina, Francis Kéré, Peter Salter, Marina Tabassum, and Eyal Weizman.

This year's RIBA Charles Jencks Award is presented to Indian architect and researcher Anupama Kundoo. Her winning the award is a great reflection of influential architectural practices and academic work in South Asia.

Wall House by Anupama Kundoo. Image © Javier Callejas

Trained in Mumbai, Kundoo's focus on housing initiatives, material research, sustainability, and community-driven design has positioned her as an advocate for socially responsible architectur...

Heatherwick Studios completes its first healthcare project, a mass timber Maggie's Centre in Leeds

2020-06-18T17:38:00-04:00

Recognized for its serene garden landscapes and eye-catching architectural approaches, Maggie's Centre facilities have become known the world over for the medical care and calming spaces these facilities offer individuals and their families affected by cancer.

Following the institution's dedication to providing environments of healing and tranquility, British designer Thomas Heatherwick has recently completed a new Maggie's Centre located within St. James' University Hospital, in Leeds, England. The project is his firm's first healthcare facility.

Maggie's Centre Leeds. Image © Hufton + Crow.

Founded by designer Maggie Keswick Jencks and her husband Charles Jencks, the facilities are a testament to how these two individuals dedicated their lives to creating a health-focused designs. Maggie's Centers have been established throughout the UK; TheMaggie's Centre in Leeds will be the organization's 26th facility.

Maggie's Centre Leeds - Interior. Image © Hufton + Crow.

Maggie's Centre L...

Charles Jencks, historian of late-modern architecture, dies

2019-10-14T12:41:00-04:00

Charles Jencks, the noted architectural theorist and historian, has passed away at age 80. RIBA Journal reported Jencks's passing via Twitter Monday morning.

Jencks is the author of countless writings and works of criticism, including many important works from the 1970s that helped to define and recognize the important shifts in architectural thinking that had taken shape as the postmodern era was getting underway.

Cover, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.

Jencks is also the scholar who famously wrote, "Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3:32 PM (or thereabouts) when the infamous Pruitt-Igoe scheme, or rather, several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grace by dynamite. Previously it had been vandalized, mutilated, and defaced by its inhabitants, and although millions of dollars were pumped back, trying to keep it alive (fixing the broken elevators, repairing smashed windows, repainting), it was finally put out of its misery. ...

End Stages: The Future of Hospice Design

2018-05-15T16:38:00-04:00

As hospice design becomes more formally ambitious — and standardized — we should remember there is no universal model for ‘dying well.’

What is the ideal setting for the end of life? The dominant templates of the mid-century mega-hospital and the domestic hospice set the rational spaces of medical institutions against the familiarity of home. Yet, we are increasingly seeing hybrid forms that deviate from these two distinct models. Nitin Ahuja looks ahead to the future of palliative architecture, and argues that in one's final needful hours, the most comforting hearths are those that feel serendipitously constructed.

Maggie's Centre founder Charles Jencks to open his house as a museum

2017-12-27T09:45:00-05:00

Architectural historian Charles Jencks has agreed to turn his house into a museum, according to BD. Located in London's Holland Park, the early Victorian stucco villa has interiors designed by Michael Graves and other alterations by Terry Farrell. An important example of post-modern design, the decision to open it up to the public has support from both Farrell and Norman Foster.

Jencks is best known for his Maggie's Centres. As the founder, Jencks recruits renowned architects to create spaces that offer free comprehensive support for those affected by cancer. Their most recent center, designed by Steven Holl, opened up earlier this month in Central London.

Interior by Farrell. Thematic House.

The Kensigton & Chelsea council have approved the proposal which would allow Jencks' Thematic House to be open to the public, by appointment, from April and December during the week for limited hours. It will remain his residence but visitors will be given access to archives of his own work, a...

Níall McLaughlin wins RIBA 2016 Charles Jencks Award

2016-09-21T18:43:00-04:00

“For me, architectural practice includes drawing, writing and building as interlinked activities. It is a continual ferrying between an engagement in the natural processes required to bring something reliable and concrete into being, and the need to clear a space for the expression of doubt, possibility and a half-glimpsed ideal...I am very grateful for the recognition.” — Níall McLaughlin

The RIBA revealed Níall McLaughlin as the 2016 Charles Jencks Award recipient today. Named after landscape designer and architectural theorist Charles Jencks, the award recognizes an individual or practice for their recent major contributions to architectural theory and practice simultaneously.

Bishop Edward King Chapel. Photo © Nick Kane.

Most recently, McLaughlin represented Ireland in the 2016 Venice Biennale with his ‘Losing Myself’ installation, which focuses on the spatial experiences of people with Alzheimer's. His firm also won the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize last year.

Find out more on Bustler.

Previously on Archinect:

Herzog & de Meuron named 2015 RIBA Jencks Award winners

Benedetta Tagliabue wins 2013 RIBA Jencks Award

Archinect rounds up critical reactions to Koolhaas' biennale

2014-06-19T11:42:00-04:00

This year's Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas, officially opened on June 7, under the theme "Fundamentals". The deluge of criticism and reporting coming out of the Biennale will surely continue until it closes November 23, but so far reactions from the architectural journalism community seem pretty consistent. Critics seem at once relieved that the biennale is not given away to preening and doting upon architectural personalities, but instead focused on "architecture, not architects", as per Koolhaas' design. The flip-side of this could be seen as replacing objects of starchitectural value with a too-safe generalism, imbued with the self-importance of Koolhaas' cult of personality. Responses seem largely concerned with interpreting the man at the same time as his Biennale, rather than investigating the interplay of national pavilions' personalities under a unifying theme. But we've got many months to go, and this is only the beginning.

But with the sheer mass o...

Gehry-designed Maggie's Centre in Hong Kong opens doors

2013-03-08T13:34:00-05:00

The scheme is the charity’s first purpose-built international centre and is Gehry’s second building for the organisation, having also designed Maggie’s Dundee in Scotland. The surrounding gardens were drawn up by landscape architect Lily Jencks - the daughter of the organisation’s founders Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks. Maggie’s Hong Kong has been ‘offering free support for anyone living with cancer including friends, family and carers’.

60 Seconds With Lily Jencks

2012-04-09T14:44:00-04:00

When she was Growing up in Scotland, Lily Jencks's parents would hold weekend seminars for their circle of academic friends. "At age 5, I had to define my generations' attitudes on topics such as 'feminist spirituality,'" said Ms. Jencks, who, at 31, runs two London-based landscape design firms: LJA + Land, which she founded in 2008, and JencksSquared, a new company through which she collaborates with her father, the architectural theorist and designer Charles Jencks.

Eric Owen Moss to receive 2011 Jencks Award

2011-08-31T17:24:00-04:00

American architect Eric Owen Moss will receive the 2011 Jencks Award, an annual accolade recognising major international contributions to the theory and practice of architecture. The award will be presented on December 6 at the RIBA where Moss will give a public lecture, chaired by Charles Jencks, after whom the award is named.

Moss started Eric Owen Moss Architects in 1973 in Los Angeles, USA and has since become involved in lectures, exhibitions, publishing and teaching around the world. His publications include Who Says What Architecture Is?, Eric Owen Moss: The Uncertainly of doing and Architecture + Design LA.

Recent projects include two office towers and a multi-theatre performance centre in Los Angeles, a hotel and office complex in West Hollywood, a 120,000sq m mixed-use project in Kazakhstan, and a masterplan for an ecologically integrated city in La Paz, Bolivia.

Previous recipients of the Jencks Award include Zaha Hadid, Foreign Office Architects, Peter Eisenman, Cecil Balmond, UNStudio, Wolf D. Prix & Coop Himmelb(l)au, Charles Correa and Steven Holl.

Totally cosmic: the Life Mounds of Charles Jencks

2011-06-22T17:10:33-04:00

The Life Mounds are the first thing you see as you drive through the gates of Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park in the grounds of Bonnington House, outside Edinburgh. Newly completed, these eight man-made hills have been shaped by the distinguished US critic, polemicist and designer Charles Jencks. Beautiful things, they rise in stepped ramps sheathed in emerald green turf, clustered around swirling ponds.