What is Post-modernism?

by Charles Jencks

'What is Post-Modernism?' Is it a new world view, or an outgrowth of the Post-Industrial Society? Is it a shift in philosophy, the arts and architecture? In this fourth, entirely revised edition, Charles Jencks, one of the founders of the Post-Modern Movement, shows it is all these things plus many other forces that have exploded since the early 1960s. In a unique analysis, using diagrams designed especially for this edition, he reveals the evolutionary, social and economic forces of this new stage of global civilisation. But why has post-modern culture arrived? In an ironic parable, 'the Protestant Crusade', Jencks uncovers some hitherto hidden the Modernists' abhorrence for all things sensuous and natural, and their zeal for all things orderly and mechanistic. This pseudo-religion led in the 1920s to the famous 'vacuum-cleaning' period, the purgation of values, metaphysics and emotion. In the 1970s it led on to the 'Protestant Inquisition' which inadvertently created the very enemy Modernists feared - a Counter-Reformation, the reassertion of worldliness, fecundity, humour and pluralism. However, more than one tradition emerged and Jencks, distinguishing two types of Post-Modernism (deconstructive and reconstructive) demonstrates that the former is often a disguised form of Late-Modernism. This takes the de-creation and nihilism of its parent to extremes. The main engine that drives global culture today - post-modernisation, the electronic economy and instant communications network - is analysed in its close relation to other 'posts': Post-Fordism, Post-Socialism and the post-national world of trading blocs and unstable nations. Jencks argues that this mayresult in catastrophe and global governance, or a web of transnational institutions and obligations. The most radical idea of this challenging book is the the notion that the post-modern world does not mean the end of metanarratives, but something quite different. Belief

Genres: Architecture, Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction

48 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1986

About the author

Charles Alexander Jencks (born 21 June 1939) is an American architecture theorist and critic, landscape architect and designer. His books on the history and criticism of modernism and postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles. He studied under the influential architectural historians Sigfried Giedion and Reyner Banham. Jencks now lives in Scotland where he designs landscape sculpture.

Reviews

[Henna]

کتاب جالبی بود ولی خب خیلی از جمله ها و مطالب سنگین نوشته شده بود. خیلی موقع ها خیلی کتاب ها می تونن خیلی مفید باشند اما بخاطر استفاده از یک سری کلمات سنگین واقعن ذهن رو برای خوندن خسته می کنن. کاش مترجم ها و نویسنده کمی به این موضوع دقت کنند.

[Ferit Behrat]

کتاب با عنوان "پست مدرنیسم" ارائه شده، اما در واقع چکیده‌ای از مقالات و نظریه‌های چارلز جنکز در مورد موضوع پست-مدرنیسم است. از طرفی بیشتر نظریات و مباحث روی مقوله‌ی معماری تمرکز دارند. بنابراین اولا برای شروع مطالعه‌ی پست-مدرنیسم مناسب نیست و ثانیا برای خواننده‌ای که قصد مطالعه‌ی مقولات دیگر پست-مدرنیسم مثل ادبیات را دارد کتاب مفیدی نخواهد بود.
کتاب رو برای کسانی پیشنهاد می‌کنم که اطلاعات اولیه - و حتی ثانویه - در مورد پست-مدرنیسم دارند و می‌خواهند در زمینه‌ی معماری این جنبش اطلاعاتی بگیرند.

[Маx Nestelieiev]

про ідею подвійного кодування як смислу нашої доби. твір - дворівнева конструкція - щоб задовольнити профана і спеца, а точніше, щоб задовольнити профана і дати насолоду спецу (привіт Ролан Барт).

[Gabriel]

Read as a companion to Barth's "Friday" pieces and Eco's "Postscript to The Name of the Rose," both of which, not coincidentally, mention each other, and Barth, Jencks. Taken together, the three posit the "Post-modern," as the "Postmodern," stripping the term of its temporal aspect and replacing it with a concept that Eco calls "double-coding," in which the artwork is experienced simultaneously on (at least) two levels at once-- the example given (and repeated) is that of the lovers who, experienced enough (perhaps jaded enough), cannot simply say "I love you madly," "because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, 'As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.'" The point being, "he" has still said "I love you madly," even as he has not "said" it.

Of the three, Jencks has the edge because, even if his ideas are more explicitly about architecture, they are, because they are about architecture, more simply (i.e., to a lesser degree subject to criticism of their examples' effects) explained and digested. This is a nice, brief explanation of the value of the category and its application, and of the category "Postmodernism" particularly, and its application.

What Jencks seems to be saying is that the Postmodern work, as opposed to the Modern and late-Modern, has at its core not only a realization and self-conscious appreciation of its medium, but also that the message thus conveyed has value beyond the medium, and, as such, implies that there is value in the accessibility of that medium and that message. One does not make the artwork free from concerns that it will be "understood." Whereas the Modern work, and what he identifies as the late-Modern work, consider only that something should aspire to be the ne plus ultra of its kind, the Postmodern may share this concern, but always with an eye as to how it will then be experienced by its audience, and with an eye toward broadening its appeal to that audience.

Of course, by choosing just these traits to emphasize, Jencks also manages to show that the Modern/Postmodern divide contextualizes both movements as parts of a cycle that is always in operation: greater sophistication/broader appeal, greater sophistication/broader appeal, etc.

And all of this in less than 50 pages, with plenty of illustrations.

[Ivan]

A nice guide to postmodernism and a place to start if the subject is new to you. Unusually, there are some specifics to postmodernism such as its deconstructionist nature, but the style epoch dates offered in the book should be treated as a guide and seen with some flexibility. Its a good starting place for the "subject".

[Narain Manohar]

Gave me what I needed I guess

[Linda]

i really like how jencks makes a distinction between postmodernism and late modernism (or hypermodernism) and calls them rival brothers. this really helps when people claim postmodernism doesn't really exist or is just an extension of modernism.

[Craig Smillie]

First half said little new but Parts 3 (PM Society) and Part 4 (The Universe as Measure) made it worth persevering with. Good.