The Cosmic House

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The Cosmic House

Photography: Sue Barr.
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The Cosmic House, one of the world’s most important examples of Post-Modern architecture, was designed by Charles Jencks and in collaboration with other Post-Modern architects.

22/05/2026

Join us at The Cosmic House on 2June for a very special Patrons’ event: Fireside Chat with author Jung Chang CBE in conversation with Chairwoman Lily Jencks (). The evening will begin with a drinks reception, followed by a conversation and a light dinner.

Jung Chang is the acclaimed and bestselling author of 'Wild Swans' (1991) and 'Mao: The Unknown Story' (2005). In this intimate event, Chang will reflect on her writing practice and latest book, 'Fly, Wild Swans' (2025); her long-standing relationship with the Jencks family; and insights into the Chinese aesthetics embedded within The Cosmic House.

Fireside Chats is a series of intimate gatherings at The Cosmic House featuring a diverse range of speakers, followed by a light dinner. Created especially for The Cosmic House Patrons, these events are only occasionally opened to the wider public when limited spaces become available.

Head to the link in bio to book tickets for this special event.

📸 Jung Chang. Photo by Zhang Xiaohong.

12/05/2026

✨ Terry Farrell was born on this day in 1924 ✨

Sir Terry Farrell worked closely with Maggie and Charles Jencks on the design of The Cosmic House, resolving the complex spatial and structural features of the house. Decades later, Farrell and Charles collaborated again on ‘Landform’ at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. Inspired by concepts in fractal geometry and chaos theory, the work was Charles’ first commissioned landscape and formed part of Farrell’s overall redesign of the gallery. ‘Landform’ went on to win the Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year in 2004.

📸 All images from The Cosmic House collection
1. Euda with drawings [CJA-EDH-7-5]
2. Euda_02.jpg [CJA-EDH-7-6]
3. Euda steps.jpg [CJA-EDH-7-4]
4. Euda Steps & Seats.jpg [CJA-EDH-7-3]

01/05/2026

This National Space day, we’re publishing the first of a two part commission in which artist and researcher Jamie Allen () elaborates on the idea of ‘cosmic withdrawal’ as a cultural and architectural tradition of selectively blocking out the universe.

Part two of the commission will explore cyclical forms, chronograms, and cosmogenic patterns, themes and generative languages of the temporal, diagrammatic variety; the kind of conceptual, transferable representations championed by Charles Jencks throughout his work for describing—and described as—Post-Modern.

Head to the link in our bio to read the full article.

24/04/2026

✨ Happy Birthday Piers Gough ✨

Piers Gough designed the Dome of Water, one of the most spectacular spaces in The Cosmic House. Thinking that a dome would make a great whirlpool bath, he looked through Charles Jencks' slides of Roman domes to find the one that would look best upside down. He chose Francesco Borromini’s dome for the Baroque church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, joking that he "put the borrow into Borromini".

📸
1. Piers Gough, Designs for the Dome of Water, Undated (c. 1978-1984).
2. The Dome of Water at The Cosmic House. Photo by Sue Barr.

14/04/2026

✨ The wisteria is in full bloom this National Gardening Day ✨

Today, we celebrate the Time Garden of The Cosmic House and its keepers, Flo Main () and Gareth Barker (). They have been observing and tending to the garden’s practical and symbolic elements, in this collaborative act that is gardening.

📸 All photos by Flo.

10/04/2026

Beyond its role as a manifesto for Post-Modernism, The Cosmic House was built as a family home for Charles and Maggie Jencks. Our archive features many domestic moments celebrating everyday life.

Click the link in bio to access our collection catalogue.

📸 Slides from The Cosmic House collection
1. Cooking in the Indian Summer kitchen [CJA-TCH-b-28-45]
2. Using the Jencksiana-shaped chopping board [CJA-TCH-b-28-30]
3. Preparing mushrooms [CJA-TCH-b-28-17]
4. Ironing in the Autumn Room [CJA-TCH-b-28-42]
5. A hamper on the Sun Chair [CJA-TCH-b-28-40]
6. Painting the Summer Room [CJA-TCH-b-29-25]
7. The Sun Table set for dinner [CJA-TCH-b-28-3]

03/04/2026

The Cosmic House is full of hidden details, from symbolic eggs to visual puns, architectural references, and many more.

Here are some of our team’s favourites. Can you find all these details woven into the design of the house? How many can you spot? (Answers below).

Finding these features is central to exploring The Cosmic House, a continuation of Charles Jencks’ own ‘Hunt the Symbol’ game in his understanding of Symbolic Architecture (link in bio to learn more).

📸
Photos 1 and 2: The Cosmic Egg in the ceiling of the Cosmic Oval entrance
Photos 3 and 4: Models of The Cosmic House on the counter of the Indian Summer kitchen
Photos 5 and 6: Springs on the lamps in the Spring room
Photos 7 and 8: Miniature pagoda in the stone landscape on the Michael Graves fireplace of the Winter room
Photos 9 and 10: Model of The Cosmic House at the top of the wood-like structure of the Amphitheatre entrance
Photos 11 and 12: Obelisk and pyramid in the armchairs of the Winter room

27/03/2026

✨ A lovely Jencksiana film strip from the archive ✨

Charles Jencks’ interest in symbols, signs and semiotics led him to design the Jencksiana, a flexible motif resembling an abstracted human face that is repeated in different variations throughout The Cosmic House. The curved elements and a stagger combine to create a suggestion of a forehead, eyes and a chin. This personal motif – modelled on the Serlian window – returns in various versions and scales throughout the interiors and exteriors of the house, framing windows, doors, furniture, or the corners of rooms below the ceilings. As its name suggests, it was designed both as Charles’ personal trademark and as an anthropomorphic symbol, giving the building a face to look back at its inhabitant.

We add new material to our collection catalogue every week, click the link in bio to check it out!

📸 Photo from The Cosmic House collection [CJA-TCH-a-23-23].

26/03/2026

In ‘Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ (1978), Charles Jencks paired his photographs of the unusual houses he encountered driving around Los Angeles with witty commentary, calling attention to these fantasy houses that had been modified or built to exude personal character and variation at a time of increasing homogenization in housing.

Curator and researcher Aurora Tang () has been rephotographing and revisiting the Daydream Houses for almost ten years, considering the informal photograph, the enthusiast, the tour, the changing appearance of LA’s residential neighbourhoods, and the significance of Charles’ book today, almost 50 years after its release.

Head to the link in our bio to read Charles’s introduction to ‘Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ with annotations by Aurora Tang.

Tang’s image pairs showing Charles’s original photographs alongside her own photographs of the Daydream Houses today will be on view in the upcoming display ‘Revising the Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ at The Cosmic House from 22 April.

24/03/2026

Coming soon: ‘Revisiting Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ by Aurora Tang

In the 1970s Charles Jencks began photographing unusual vernacular houses while driving through Los Angeles, a project later published as ‘Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ (1978). Curator and researcher Aurora Tang () has revisited these homes, rephotographing them to trace changes in the urban environment and architectural taste over time. This display presents selected image pairs from her project. Like Charles’ own photographic practice, it demonstrates that understanding architecture often begins with looking closely – through the camera lens, and through the simple act of moving through a city on foot or by car.

‘Revisiting Daydream Houses of Los Angeles’ will be on view at The Cosmic House from 22 April to 28 August.

📸 Left: Charles Jencks; Right: Aurora Tang.

19/03/2026

✨ Ticket Alert for April! ✨

The Cosmic House is reopening on 22 April and we cannot wait to welcome you back! We'll continue to release tickets on a monthly basis, every third Friday of the month at 12 pm.

Get ready, tickets for April visits are going live tomorrow, Friday 20 March at 12 pm!

🔗 link in our bio.
📅 Wednesday to Friday.
🎫 £16 with donation, £13 standard, £5 student.

📸 Gallery entrance to The Cosmic House. Photo by Sue Barr.

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19 Lansdowne Walk
Hammersmith
W113AH

Website

https://www.thecosmichouse.org/

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