The news of the death of Charles Jencks this month has sparked many reflections and stories about his influence on the world of architecture. I do not consider myself an expert in synaptic connections, so I have no idea why, but this sad news took my mind on a different journey. It jumped from Jencks to a BBC documentary from the 80s, via my old university in Dundee and a Peter Greenaway film and ended with a rumination on architects, architectural critics and their legacies. A strange journey and one I will recall here as my own journey with Charles Jencks.

From what I have read in the many articles published since his death he was an erudite and intelligent man. I never had the chance to hear him lecture or had the honour of meeting him but, despite this, I felt I knew him through his work.

As we know, he was the man who codified architectural post-modernism, becoming a spokesman for a generation of architects (despite many of them being “post-modern” before his book was written!). The Language of Post-Modern Architecture, first published in 1977, created a polemic that established a set of values to which all post-modern architecture should subscribe. It kick-started a “crisis” in our profession which placed architects on one of two sides.

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