Radical Post-Modernism

In this latest issue of Architectural Design the guest editors are drawn, like the content, from contrasting tastes and generations. Charles Jencks, the definer of Post-Modernism for thirty years, discusses some issues that have re-emerged today, while the young group of British architects, FAT, argues for a particular version of RPM. An interview between Rem Koohaas and Charles Jencks discusses the influence of Post-Modernism while investigations of street art, graffiti and the 1980 Venice Biennale show that communication is at the heart of this radical strain of architecture.

• This issue brings together an unlikely and exciting pairing of guest-editors: internationally acclaimed critic Charles Jencks, whose name became synonymous with Post-modernism in the 80s, and the dynamic architectural group, FAT.
• Features work by: ARM, Atelier Bow Wow, Édouard François, FOA, Rem Koolhaas, John and Valerio Olgiati.

5 Editorial
Helen Castle

6 About the Guest-Editors
Charles Jencks, Sean Griffiths, Charles Holland and Sam Jacob

8 Spotlight
Visual highlights of the issue

14 Introduction

What is Radical Post-Modernism?
Charles Jencks

Post-Modernism: An Incomplete Project
Fat

24 Beyond the Flatline
Sam Jacob

32 Radical Post-Modernism and Content: Charles Jencks and Rem Koolhaas debate the issue
Jencks and Koolhaas exchange on Post-Modernism, preservation, the evil aura of the word ‘iconic’ and the Big Mac sandwich diagram.

46 A Field Guide to Radical Post-Modernism
Fat

62 Contextual Counterpoint
Charles Jencks

68 Virtual Corpses, Figural Sections and Resonant Fields
Sean Griffiths

78 FAT Projects: Manifesting Radical Post-Modernism
Fat

90 Questions of Taste
Charles Holland

98 Historicism versus Communication: The Basic Debate of the 1980 Biennale
Léa-Catherine Szacka The 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale brought Post-Modernism to the world’s attention, but also highlighted the tensions between historicism and communication.

106 Too Good to Be True: The Survival of English Everyday PoMo
Kester Rattenbury

114 The True Counterfeits of Banksy: Radical Walls of Complicity and Subversion
Eva Branscome

122 Re-Radicalising Post-Modernism
Fat

128 Counterpoint Not So Radical: An American Perspective
Jayne Merkel

Charles Jencks is an American architectural theorist, author and landscape architect. He has a BA in English Lit, BA and MA in Architecture and a PhD in Architectural History. He guest lectures on architecture in cultural institutions across the world. RADICAL POST-MODERNISM
GUEST-EDITED BY CHARLES JENCKS AND FAT

Radical Post-Modernism (RPM) marks the resurgence of a critical architecture that engages in a far-reaching way with issues of taste, space, character and ornament. Bridging high and low cultures, it immerses itself in the age of information, embracing meaning and communication, embroiling itself in the dirty politics of taste by drawing ideas from beyond the narrow confines of architecture. It is a multi-dimensional, amorphous category, which is heavily influenced by contemporary art, cultural theory, modern literature and everyday life. This title of AD demonstrates how, in the age of late capitalism, Radical Post-Modernism can provide an architecture of resistance and contemporary relevance, forming a much needed antidote to the prevailing cult of anodyne Modernism and the vacuous spatial gymnastics of the so-called digital 'avant-garde'.

• Contributions from: Sean Griffiths, Charles Holland, Sam Jacob, Charles Jencks and Kester Rattenbury
• Featured architects: ARM, Atelier Bow Wow, Crimson, CUP, FAT, FOA, Édouard François, Terunobu Fujimori, Hild und K, Rem Koolhaas, John Kormelling, muf, Valerio Olgiati.