Charles Jencks Book order

Risk is embedded in almost every corner of the popular culture we consume; its hidden exposure is a new version of disaster capitalism. No Dice explores the messy world of gambling, addiction and risk that we encounter daily, from childhood through adulthood, to ask - is it worth the risk? And more so, do we even know what risks we're taking?

When this book first appeared in 1972, it heralded a new era in architecture and design, moving beyond the rigid doctrines of modernism. Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver presented a manifesto for a generation that embraced improvisation and resourcefulness to tackle real-world challenges. The book quickly became a DIY guide for disillusioned citizens of the 1970s, introducing the term "adhocism" into the design lexicon and establishing it as a cult classic. Now re-released, it includes new reflections by Jencks and Silver on four decades of adhocism, along with fresh illustrations highlighting its ongoing relevance. Adhocism has always existed, exemplified by figures like Robinson Crusoe, who improvised tools from his surroundings. As a design principle, it encourages everyday creativity—transforming a bottle into a candleholder or a tractor seat into a chair. More broadly, adhocism influences various activities, from play to architecture and political movements. Engagingly written and richly illustrated with examples from diverse fields, the book advocates for a focus on practical solutions over strict adherence to rules, emphasizing that problem-solving often arises from trial and error rather than sudden insights.

Landforms are a fast-developing art form that enjoy a wide following today, because of their multiple uses and their enveloping beauty. As formal landscapes that often arise from necessity - recycling a coal site for human use or making new use of excess earth - they are a pleasure to walk over and through.In this collection of his recent work, Charles Jencks explains his particular approach to the landform. Like the prehistoric earthworks of Britain that have been an inspiration, such as Stonehenge, his landforms contain cosmic symbolism, and they draw together sculpture, epigraphy, water, gardens, scrap metal and architecture. They address perennial themes - identity, patterns of nature, death and the power of life - but in a contemporary way, based on the insights of science. So Jencks portrays universal aspects of DNA, the spacetime warp of a black hole, the extraordinary way cells divide and unite and some basic forms of life.Other designs include sharp comments on recent a water garden of war in France critiques the 2003 invasion of Iraq using 'waterpults' and 'hose-guns' among other interactive features; a white garden made from birch trees, flying bones and computer graphics deals with some fatal consequences of modernity. Jencks addresses, with wit and irony, some of the strange possibilities that arise with extra-large landforms. Northumberlandia, perhaps the largest human figure ever made, presents the question of which body parts one can walk on safely, which are dangerous and which need to be suppressed. What became perhaps the heaviest work of art in the world, at 20 million tons, was also the opportunity to transform a large open-cast mine into a dynamic landscape of giant mounds and sculpted lakes.As in his The Garden of Cosmic Speculation , to which this book is a sequel, Jencks seeks to define a new landscape iconography based on forms and themes that may be eternal, in the sense that they crystallise nature's laws, some of which have been recently discovered. To see a world in a grain of sand was a poetic quest of William Blake and, in a different sense, to find the universe in a ritual landscape was a goal of prehistoric cultures. Jencks allies these spiritual affinities with the view of science that stresses the common patterns that underlie all parts of the cosmos, thus making them like our home planet, and the universe in a landscape.

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.

Includes essays and excerpts from the works of prominent modern thinkers such as Umberto Eco, Jacques Derrida, and Isaiah Berlin among others.