Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book explores the broad issue of Postmodernism and tells the story of the movement that has changed the face of architecture over the last forty years. In this completely rewritten edition of his seminal work, Charles Jencks brings the history of architecture up to date and shows how demands for a new and complex architecture, aided by computer design, have led to more convivial, sensuous, and articulate buildings around the world.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Polemical Acknowledgements (p. vii)
• Introduction: The New Paradigm in Architecture (p. 1)
• Part I The Death of Modern Architecture (p. 9)
• Part II The Modes of Architectural Communication (p. 25)
• Part III Post-Modern Architecture (p. 53)
• Radical Eclecticism (p. 97)
• Post-Modern Classicism (p. 115)
• Post-Modernism Becomes a Tradition (p. 143)
• Post-Modernism Between Kitsch and Culture (p. 151)
• The Heteropolis (p. 175)
• The New Paradigm I Complexity Architecture (p. 207)
• The New Paradigm II Fractal Architecture (p. 235)
• Notes (p. 265)
• Index (p. 272)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Jencks is the principal author on postmodernism in architecture, chiefly through his The Language of Postmodernism, which has gone through six editions and many translations since its first publication in 1977. This book has been standard issue in most schools of architecture for over 20 years; Jencks himself taught architecture at UCLA for many years. The book at hand is a complete rewrite of the original editions, with two new chapters. It updates Jencks's survey of world architecture to include the last ten years of stylistic evolution, climaxing with such galactic masterpieces as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Daniel Liebeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany. Jencks, a transplanted Englishman, is a breezy writer. He glosses over differences in design, preferring to inscribe all schools and styles since the 1960s within the orbits of "multiple coding," "complexity," "heterogeneity," and "pluralism." He is such a readable writer that almost any library collection would benefit from this book. Peter McKee Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.