The Architecture of the Jumping Universe: A Polemic: How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture [Paperback]

Charles Jencks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 1997

This inspired synthesis of art, design, science, and philosophy charts a bold new course...Riveting.-- Paul Davies, author of The Cosmic Blueprint

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Architecture of the Jumping Universe A Polemic How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture A new world view, influenced by current science, shows the universe to be more creative and dynamic than previously thought. This shift in thinking, Charles Jencks argues, is from a traditional religious perspective to a cosmogenic orientation: the view that we inhabit a self-organizing universe in which the mind and culture are understood to be not accidental but typical of its creativity. How might this view change architecture and culture? In this, the second edition, Jencks makes the case that the recently formulated Complexity Theory and theory of a creative cosmogenesis offer a basic answer. Architecture might reflect the processes of the universe, its energy, its growths and sudden leaps, its beautiful twists, curls and turns; its catastrophes. The book presents the basic ideas of the Sciences of Complexity and shows many buildings based on this new language by leading architects (such as Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind) along with ecological and organic designs. Jencks' own recent work is used to illustrate concepts in physics and an architecture based on waves, twists and fractals. The second edition shows the movement of Nonlinear Architecture gathering momentum in different parts of the world with notable buildings completed in Australia, Japan, Germany and America. This friendly polemic, in a long tradition of partisan manifestoes, both advocates and criticizes as it seeks to define a new direction for the contemporary arts. It defines the challenge of a new spiritual culture, based on the twin concepts of cosmogenesis and the emergence of ever higher levels of sensitivity and organization. Otto Rank said that if you want to know the soul of a culture you go to its architecture. Charles Jencks, with wit, passion and a broad outlook, lays down the challenge to our culture - and architects - to express the emerging cosmology in their life and work. By daring to tackle the deep questions: How to counter depthlessness? What is civic life today? In what style are we to build? he challenges architects and citizens to engage in the great debate about who we are and to what we aspire. This book honours not only architectural space and cosmic space but soul space. It is spirited and refreshing, a demand that we join the jumping universe and thereby reinvent our work - in particular the work of architecture. Matthew Fox, author of The Reinvention of Work, Original Blessing and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

Charles Jencks has the uncanny capacity to announce a new movement in architecture before it has begun. With Post-Modernism, he was looking to the past. Now, for the first time, with his new book on morphogenesis he is taking a look at the future. There is no question that his argument will have an important critical effect on architecture at the beginning of the new millennium. Peter Eisenman. Architect A new paradigm is sweeping through science, changing both our view of the universe and of mankind. Charles Jencks is one of a handful of thinkers with the courage to embrace the emerging paradigm and interpret it architecturally. This inspired synthesis of art, design, science and philosophy charts a bold new course not only for architecture, but for Post-Modern thought. Paul Davies, Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Adelaide, author of The Cosmic Blueprint, Superforce, The Mind of God and other books on contemporary science. Who else could have written a book that opens up such cosmic perspectives and still make such neat, sharply focused comments on particular architects and particular styles of architecture? Who else could range with such zest, ease and elegance from Chaos to Bruce Goff, from Coleridge to Frank Gehry, from Complexity Theory to Green Buildings? The old question of in which style should we build can never be addressed in the same way again. Charles Jencks has brought purpose back into architecture. His teleology may transcend what architects are used to, but Jencks manages to make far more sense out of our contemporary architectural dilemmas than practically all the other books in the RIBA book shop. Francis Duffy, Chairman of DEGW International Ltd --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Academy Editions; 2nd edition (May 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854904868
• ISBN-13: 978-1854904867
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,909,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This will be viewed as an important book in the 21st century, December 2, 1998

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[e-mail] (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Architecture of the Jumping Universe: A Polemic: How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture (Academy Editions) (Paperback)

In the coming century, this book will be known as ground breaking. In our culture, architects do not have the ability to look forward and see changing paradigms. This book successfuly outlines an emerging design paradigm for the 20th century. Unfortnately it dwells too much in style and not enough in substance when examples are used. The issue of green architecture and ecology which i belive are the heart of architecture's relationship to complexity theory are given very short chapters. Instead, Jencks focuses on stylistic expressions of chaos from the likes of Gehry and Eisenmann. Overall though, this is a book that every young, impressionable architect should read right away!