ARCHITECTURE: Chronograms of Architecture
Contemporary architecture emerges from a richly diverse and highly tuned architecture culture; a constructed discourse, with a constantly written and rewritten history. In an attempt to grasp and reckon with the historical moment that he was living in, Charles Jencks*, the legendary father of post- modernism, developed Evolutionary Tree drawings.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: CIVA Archive
Evolutionary Tree drawings, which are somewhere between a diagram and a map, laid out six ideologies that allowed Charles Jencks to categorize all the “-isms” of present, past, and future architectural culture. Architects, buildings, social trends, and technical innovations were plotted on a timeline in relation to these streams. What resulted is the now-iconic image of a series of undulating blobs tracing architecture and society’s pulsations between different ideals though time. The exhibition “Chronograms of Architecture” showcases Jencks’ key diagrams, spanning from 1920 to 2000, along with eight newly commissioned diagrams by 8 teams of contemporary architects, researchers and graphic designers, reflecting on the historical moment that we live in today. While none can possibly present a total account, in their own way they each re- veal critical and urgent ways of seeing, understanding, and working in the architectural culture of the present. These eight diagrams—perhaps eight streams of a map of now—provoke questions around the techno-optimism and techno-bureaucracy, feminist spatial practice and racial disparity, the ecological implications and productive conditions of architecture, and circular building strategies and the definition of the discipline. Highlighting the question of “writing history” the exhibition space is centered around a large element which is at once vitrine and auditorium and will host a series of talks and workshops by Mark Wigley, Isabelle Doucet, Mario Carpo, Lorenzo Pezzani, Parasite 2.0 and many others.
Works by: Pier Vittorio Aureli, Marson Korbi, Mario Carpo, Mark Garcia, Charles L. Davis II, Curry J. Hackett, Lionel Devlieger, Michaël Ghyoot, Adam Przywara, Karen Steukers, Arne Vande Capelle, Louise Vanhee, Maria Fedorchenko, Yeliz Abdurahman, Urtzi Grau, Francesca Hughes, Charles Jencks, MOULD, Bryony Roberts, Abriannah Aiken.
* Charles Alexander Jencks was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous in the 1980s as a theorist of postmodernism. Jencks devoted time to landform architecture, especially in Scotland. These landscapes include the Garden of Cosmic Speculation and earthworks at Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh. His continuing project Crawick Multiverse, commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch, opened in 2015 near Sanquhar.
Photo: Bryony Roberts and Abriannah Aiken, Feminist Spatial Practices, Part 1, 2023, Courtesy of the artists and the Jencks Foundation at The Cosmic House
Info: Artistic Director: Nikolaus Hirsch, Curators: Nick Axel, Silvia Franceschini, Nikolaus Hirsch, Lily Jencks, Eszter Steierhoffer, CIVA, Rue de l’Ermitage 55, Brussels, Belgium, Duration: 14/5-28/9/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:30-18:00, https://civa.brussels/
