In 2005 American landscape architect and designer Charles Jenckswas commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch to re-imagine an abandoned open-cast coal site in Sanquhar, southern Scotland. The mine was closed in the 1980s, like many others in the surrounding area. Inspired by the landforms left over from the coal mining process, Charles’ land art design focused on ecological and astronomical themes, connecting the post-industrial site with neighbouring landscape, and seeking to put into form the latest thinking in astronomy and cosmology.
The Crawick Multiverse opened to the public in 2015 and consists of a series of paths that link together landforms that represent the sun, universes, galaxies, black holes, and comets. The park illustrates one of the most controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology, that our universe is only one of many multiverses. The concept has been explored for years by science fiction writers, as well as scientists, and shows that fertile ground where philosophy and physics meet.
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Charles Jencks
Bio »Charles Jencks
Charles Jencks (1939–2019) was a writer, critic, designer and teacher whose work defined and refined the disparate and wide-reaching ideas behind Post-Modernism. Arguably the most widely-read and influential writer on architecture of the late twentieth century, his books were pivotal in explaining, illuminating and developing the often complex ideas behind Post-Modernism. The Cosmic House was a physical manifestation of those ideas incorporating and metabolising references to developments in art history and science, philosophy, cosmology and the body. For the archival copy of Jencks’ website, containing his own presentation of his work please visit here.