Charles Jencks
(1939–2019) London, United Kingdom
Charles Jencks (1939–2019) was a writer, critic, designer and teacher whose work defined and refined the disparate and wide-reaching ideas behind post-modernism. A writer on architecture of the late twentieth century, his books illuminated and developed the often-complex ideas behind post-modernism. The Cosmic House, home to the Jencks Foundation since 2021, represents a physical manifestation of Jencks’s ideas and incorporates and metabolizes references to developments in art history, science, philosophy, cosmology, and the body.
The Jencks Foundation, established in 2021 with the public opening of The Cosmic House, is a cultural laboratory dedicated to critical experimentation in historical and artistic research. Its annual programme—shaped through exhibitions, commissions, residencies, salons, and seminars—draws on Charles Jencks’ archive and extensive library, which the foundation preserves and makes accessible as a key site for exploring Post-Modern architecture and culture.
2025 Biennial Project
Project Overview
The Evolutionary Tree
Diagrams were central to Charles Jencks’ work as an architectural writer and historian. More than simply classifying styles, they offered a way to trace the shifting relationships between architecture and society, charting flows of social, technological, scientific, and cultural change.
Among his most influential was The Evolutionary Tree, a diagram he continually revised. It mapped six traditions or future tendencies as undulating forms—visualizing society’s oscillation between opposing ideals—set against a grid spanning 1920 to 2000, where past innovations intersected with imagined futures. For Jencks, studying history was a way to anticipate what lay ahead—his diagrams thus functioned as both forecasts and provocations. For this exhibition, four versions of The Evolutionary Tree—published between 1970 and 2000—were selected to highlight how Jencks constantly updated his thinking in response to shifting cultural and architectural debates.