Historian, critic, architect and then landscape architect. The multifaceted, postmodernist legacy of Charles Jencks will open to the public in September 2021, thanks to a project to convert his Cosmic House – a private home in London’s Holland Park – into an exhibition and archive space, which will host a rich program of exhibitions, lectures and residencies.
Although he was born in the United States, specifically in Baltimore, Charles Jencks moved to London to study, where he then moved permanently. Started in 1978, the Cosmic House is a project of conversion of a Victorian villa. The historian and his wife Maggie Jencks collaborated with architect Terry Farrel, boasting contributions and works by Piers Gough, Eduardo Paolozzi, Michael Graves, Allen Jones, among others. The residence’s postmodernist design references a complex web of iconography and cosmic references: a manifesto of Post Modernism, rich, kitschy and endlessly inventive.
The Jencks Foundation brings forward the legacy of the historian’s provocative work and will promote cultural laboratory critical experimentation in historical, artistic, and scientific research through fellowships and residencies and a related program of exhibitions, lectures, and publications. “My parents designed the Cosmic House as
a playful polemic” explains Lily Jencks, daughter of Charles and Meggie Jancks and co-designer of the new gallery. “With the Jencks Foundation we hope it will continue to provoke the cultural conversation, and provide a platform for those engaging with the broadest and deepest meaning in architecture”.