Maggie Keswick Views
Jencks studied under the Modern architectural historians Siegfried Giedion and Reyner Banham. He first received his BA in English Literature at Harvard University in 1961, later gaining an MA in architecture from the Graduate School of Design in 1965. He took his studies even further and received his PhD in Architectural History from University College, London in 1970. In the mid-sixties Jencks moved to Scotland where he resided with his late wife Maggie Keswick Jencks. He now designs landscape sculpture and writes on cosmogenic art.
The Scottish registered charity (registration number SC024414) which promotes, builds and runs the centres is formally named the Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Trust, but refers to itself simply as Maggie's. It was founded by and named after the late Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of cancer in 1995. Like her husband, architectural writer and critic Charles Jencks, she believed in the ability of buildings to uplift people. The buildings that house the centres have been designed by leading architects, including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers.[1]
Maggie Keswick Jencks, who died of breast cancer in 1995, pioneered the setting up of several small cancer caring centres in the UK. The philosophy behind Maggie's Centres is that your immediate environment affects your well-being. These intimate buildings are the first stage in helping sufferers manage their fears.
For people seriously ill with cancer, a positive outlook is essential. Yet so much of their time is spent in soul-destroying waiting rooms and strip-lit clinics. How much better for a patient to 'feel hugged by a building'. Simon Garfield reveals why Zaha Hadid's new Maggie's Centre - the architect's first commission on home soil - will be a fitting tribute to her late friend, Maggie Keswick Jencks
Maggie Keswick Images
