Architecture can’t cure cancer, but good design has the power to heal. That’s the philosophy behind Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, a network of drop-in facilities in Great Britain. The centers—17 and growing—are named for writer and landscape architect Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of breast cancer in 1995. Married to the influential American architecture critic and landscape architect Charles Jencks, Maggie spent the last two years of her life conceiving a warm, inviting place where cancer patients could spend time learning how to cope with their disease and meeting with friends and family members. The first Maggie’s Centre opened in 1996 in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the grounds of Western General Hospital, where Maggie received treatment. Designed by Richard Murphy Architects, it was built (and later expanded) from a converted stable. Homey, light-filled, and colorful, the center is a deliberate contrast to the hospital, which, like most National Health Service buildings, is institutional and impersonal.
Since then, some of the world’s best-known architects—including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, and Rem Koolhaas—have designed more Maggie’s Centres. The latest, by the Oslo-based firm Snøhetta, opened in Aberdeen, Scotland, on September 23. “It looks kind of like an egg that’s cracking open,” says Charles Jencks, who co-founded Maggie’s Centres with his late wife and continues to serve as a board member. “In the center of the egg is a wooden element, like a geode.” Jencks spoke with Record by phone from his home in London.
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