Lecture date: 1999-05-18
Charles Jencks tracks the broad trend towards an architecture that could be called ecstatic – in part motivated by pure architectural ideas pushed to their limits, but also by a shift from functional concerns to sensual ones. Ecstatic architectures primary contemporary monument is Frank Gehrys Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, yet it encompasses buildings that differ widely in function and in time: from cave art to the cinema centre in Dresden, from explicitly erotic architecture to buildings which have a spiritual role, from conceptual and cybernetic artefacts to pure architecture.
Charles Jencks is an architect, designer, and author of numerous books including The Language of Post-Modern Architecture; Architecture Today and The Architecture of the Jumping Universe.
