’isms and ’wasms

Modernism and Post-Modernism were never monolithic cultures but complex constellations of movements, ideas, affiliations, and associations which were often fluid and hybrid. In books including Modern Movements in Architecture (1973) and The Language of Post Modernism (1977), Charles Jencks looked at the edges, the eccentric, the bizarre and the outsider cultures of architecture beyond the mainstream. Here he found an endlessly splintering taxonomy of ‘isms’ (and ‘wasms’), the constantly morphing movements in culture and architecture interacting, crossing-over, fading away and leaving ripples in their wake. His famous diagrams ‘Six Streams of Architecture’ and the later ‘Evolutionary Tree’ illustrate his understanding of the evolution of ideas and styles in architecture as an organic flow of undulating blobs. ‘Isms’ and ‘Wasms’, an expanding collection of essays, articles, and diagrams, provides an insight into this rich tapestry.