Bizarre Architecture

by Charles Jencks

Genres: Architecture

80 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1979

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

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jencks notes that bizarre buildings do not fit with our preconceived classifications of building types and therefore we struggle to glean meaning from them. In other words, once we fit them into a model that we are familiar with, we make sense of them, they become sensible. It is in this moment that Jencks says they lose some of their magic. Similar to a joke that has to be explained, the moment is over. Similarly, when he talks of other buildings, such as Venturi’s building-boards and trademark-buildings where a giant donut is the shop, and so on, he notes that these too are like poor jokes; one liners that ‘suffer from a shortness of breath’.

By extrapolation, I like the idea that a bizarre building can take you breath away when you first see it, and that a truly memorable one, such as Guadi’s House of Bones, will continue to leave you breathless, retaining its mystique well past the initial double-take. I wonder too if that explanation says something more – that such a building is highly experiential – we stare or look twice, hold our breathe, focus all our attention, want to reach out. It awakens our senses as we try to make sense of it. The building, is for a moment at least, fully ‘alive’ in our mind’s eye.

I also enjoyed the way in which he explains the different takes on the Sydney Opera House, between architect’s intentions, public perception and the repetitious journalistic determination that forever set the curves as ‘sails’ as opposed to ‘a scrum of nuns’. Personal opinion makes a difference, but the loudest voice wins out in the end and frames the metaphor moving forward, proving the pen is mightier than the trowel.

He also make the interesting point that we tend to appreciate architecture with clear paternity and stylistic purity. Designs with uncertain lineage could be called ‘illegitimate’ ‘inferior’ ‘bastard architecture.’ Something that tries and fails to be as good as other architectures, rather than something odd and splendid in its own right. Mannerism is derided compared to the Renaissance, Baroque too. Jencks quotes the idea that Queen Anne Revival was seen as a ‘Gothic game played with neo-classical counters.’ For better or for worse, with results that can be labelled as good or bad, the hybrid style was content to play its own way. Surrealism embraced and revelled in this approach with its Exquisite Corpse game. Gaudi also must be seen not as a failed Baroque but a wholly independent marvel – not a camel failing at being a horse, but a camel, (dragon or sea creature) through and through.

Lastly, I appreciated the comparison with onomatopoeia: “where the sound is an echo to the sense (i.e cuckoo, bang), the form [in iconic architecture] is an echo to the content.” It makes sense of metaphor, metaphorically.

Jencks’ book is short on words but big on pictures – and I think that is an appropriate response to this subject. A picture says a thousand words, as the ubiquitous cliché goes, and in this instance, it’s true… and some.

[Scott Benowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title implies, this book is a journey through some of the most unusually shaped buildings throughout the world. This book briefly describes the history of some of the buildings which are presented in this book, the author tells us information about the architects who designed some of the buildings that we read about in this book, and there are beautiful color photos of all of the buildings which are described in this book.
If you are interested in reading about some of the most unusually shaped buildings throughout the world, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.
This book is written for laypersons, you don't need to possess an advanced knowledge of architecture to enjoy this book.
a brief note: this book was originally published in 1979. There have been quite a few buildings throughout the world which have been built since then which are unusually shaped. I do still recommend this book, even though it is somewhat out of date by now (I'm writing this in 2023). This book is the most comprehensive book about unusually shaped buildings throughout the world which were built up to 1979. Newer books about this same topic seen to focus primarily on newer buildings. This is the best book about this topic which concentrates on buildings which predate the 1980's.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable enough. As a rule, I enjoy this kind of off-kilter architecture, and expected to appreciate this book a bit more than I did. But as Jencks writes, "As soon as there are two, similar Sydney Opera houses it ceases to be bizarre, and becomes instead conventional" – much of the pleasure of bizarre architecture lies in its singularity, and while any of these buildings would be delightful to encounter in an ordinary urban context, when viewing 60 of them consecutively, the jokes wear thin.

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obligatory reading for me as a novelty-architecture enthusiast, but didn’t really transcend its “just a slideshow in book form” status.

[Andrés Souto Vilarós · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is all about the classification method. This part was quite interesting and relevant.
It'a a fun book to look at, but i expected much more from it. More images, more examples and more bizarreness.