In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, the authority on Post-Modern architecture and culture, provides the defining account of Post-Modern architecture from its earliest roots in the early 60s to the present day. By breaking the narrative into seven distinct chapters, which are both chronological and overlapping, Jencks charts the ebb and flow of the movement, the peaks and troughs of different ideas and themes. * The book is highly visual. As well as providing a chronological account of the movement, each chapter also has a special feature on the major works of a given period. * The first up-to-date narrative of Post-Modern Architecture - other major books on the subject were written 20 years ago. * An accessible narrative that will appeal to students who are new to the subject, as well as those who can remember its heyday in the 70s and 80s.

The latest edition in the successful Builders Series, Civic Builders contains international coverage of government buildings and city halls. Commencing with an introduction on the history of civic buildings, this volume goes on to showcase 30 contemporary case studies by world renown architects, including Foster and Partners, Richard Meir and Helmut Jahn. Each project is fully illustrated by the incorporation of texts, plans and photos of civic buildings.

Civic life is not only about the authority of government and the duties of citizens, but should also encompass passion and imagination. Civic Builders presents recent municipal buildings around the world that subscribe to this attitude: they all demonstrate a quality of playfulness and liveliness, whilst maintaining their dignity and power.

The book focuses on the city hall, where people have the most direct experience of government, both on the purely symbolic level and in the nitty-gritty of governmental functions. Organised chronologically, it begins with Säynätsalo Town Hall in Finland and three North American city halls: Toronto, Boston and Dallas. The Post-Modernist Portland Building, the James R. Thompson Center and Mississauga City Hall take us into the 1980s, followed by a profusion of intriguing civic buildings that began to emerge in Europe, North America and Asia in the 1990s - including Ottawa City Hall, the Vidhan Bhavan, La Flèche Town Hall, Murcia Town Hall and the Clark County Government Center, which is shown on the cover. It concludes with several projects in the United States that are still on the drawing board.

Beyond city halls, the book includes legislative buildings such as the Reichstag (1999) and the European Parliament Building (1999); some buildings that are only symbolically public, such as the Berlin Chancellery (2001) and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (1999); and designs that show civic imagination can flourish even in the service of administration.

It is possible to see in these buildings a warmth and welcome, and a sense of connection to community. They bring to mind the base meaning of 'metropolis', whose roots are literally 'mother-city'. In short, they show the human touch.

Other titles available in the Wiley-Academy 'Builders' series:
Museum (1854901915), Theatre (1854904507), Library (0471977357, Church (0471977551), Monument (0471983683), Airport (0471984450), Bank (0471853593), Cinema (0471491381), University (0471988340), Bridge (047149786X)

Future titles include:
School Builders by Eleanor Curtis
Hospital Builders by Tony Monk
Theme Park Builders by Loraine Dearstyne Fowlow
Museum Builders II by Laura Hourston
Office Builders by Katherine MacInnes

In The Story of Post-Modernism, Charles Jencks, the authority on Post-Modern architecture and culture, provides the defining account of Post-Modern architecture from its earliest roots in the early 60s to the present day. By breaking the narrative into seven distinct chapters, which are both chronological and overlapping, Jencks charts the ebb and flow of the movement, the peaks and troughs of different ideas and themes. * The book is highly visual. As well as providing a chronological account of the movement, each chapter also has a special feature on the major works of a given period. * The first up-to-date narrative of Post-Modern Architecture - other major books on the subject were written 20 years ago. * An accessible narrative that will appeal to students who are new to the subject, as well as those who can remember its heyday in the 70s and 80s.

Post-Modernism has been debated, attacked and defended for over three decades. It is, however, not just a fashion or style but part of a greater movement in all areas of culture, and one which stubbornly persists like its parent, Modernism. "The Post-Modern Reader" is a seminal anthology that presents this trend in all its diversity, as a convergence in architecture and literature, sociology and cultural theory, feminism and theology, science and economics.

For this new edition, editor Charles Jencks, has provided an entirely new definitive introductory essay 'What then is Post-Modernism?' that reflects on the movement's coming of age. The book also encompasses essential classic texts on the subject by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Robert Venturi, while incorporating new inclusions by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, John Gray, Ihab Hassan and Anatole Kaletsky. Each text is introduced and contextualised for the reader with a new short introductory passage.A new edition of a classic anthology of 26 texts covering the full gamut of Post-Modern thought from architecture and literature to economics and theology.The reader includes key texts by John Barth, Umberto Eco, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, Jean-Francois Lyotard and Robert Venturi.A book edited by the most influential figure behind the Post-Modern movement - Charles Jencks.A timely and informative publication for students that captures the renewed interest in Post-Modernism.

The triumphant return of a book that gave us permission to throw out the rulebook, in activities ranging from play to architecture to revolution. When this book first appeared in 1972, it was part of the spirit that would define a new architecture and design era-a new way of thinking ready to move beyond the purist doctrines and formal models of modernism. Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver's book was a manifesto for a generation that took pleasure in doing things ad hoc, using materials at hand to solve real-world problems. The implications were subversive. Turned-off citizens of the 1970s immediately adopted the book as a DIY guide. The word "adhocism" entered the vocabulary, the concept of adhocism became part of the designer's toolkit, and Adhocism became a cult classic. Now Adhocism is available again, with new texts by Jencks and Silver reflecting on the past forty years of adhocism and new illustrations demonstrating adhocism's continuing relevance. Adhocism has always been around. (Think Robinson Crusoe, making a raft and then a shelter from the wreck of his ship.) As a design principle, adhocism starts with everyday improvisations: a bottle as a candleholder, a dictionary as a doorstop, a tractor seat on wheels as a dining room chair. But it is also an undeveloped force within the way we approach almost every activity, from play to architecture to city planning to political revolution. Engagingly written, filled with pictures and examples from areas as diverse as auto mechanics and biology, Adhocism urges us to pay less attention to the rulebook and more to the real principle of how we actually do things. It declares that problems are not necessarily solved in a genius's "eureka!" moment but by trial and error, adjustment and readjustment.