Maggie's Centres: A Blueprint for Cancer Care

Dundee exterior and landscape. Architect: Frank Gehry. Landscape Architect: Arabella Lennox-Boyd. © Maggie's Centres

Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres are for anyone affected by cancer. Built on the grounds of cancer hospitals, they are designed to be warm, welcoming places that provide practical, emotional, and social support. Conceived by the late Maggie Keswick Jencks, along with her husband Charles Jencks, as a direct response to her own experience with cancer, the first Maggie’s Centre in Edinburgh opened its doors to the public in 1996. Since then, Maggie’s has grown to 17 centers across the United Kingdom and beyond, with many more to follow. This exhibition will focus in depth on five centers: Maggie’s Dundee, designed by Frank Gehry; Maggie’s Gartnavel, designed by Rem Koolhaas; Maggie’s Nottingham, designed by Piers Gough with interiors designed by Paul Smith; Maggie’s West London, designed by Richard Rogers; and Maggie’s Barts, designed by Steven Holl (not yet realized). In exploring the unique architectural elements of each center, from the undulating roofs of Gehry’s Dundee to Holl’s musically inspired space at the future Maggie’s Barts, the exhibition illustrates the importance of user-focused design in creating an environment of help and healing. By design, Maggie’s combines aspects of healthcare and treatment that are often separate in to a single hybrid building type; a space that is part-hospital, part-church, part-museum, and part-home. “Maggie’s Centres: A Blueprint for Cancer Care” will be open from March 7 – April 25, 2014 at the New York School of Interior Design, NYSID Gallery, 161 East 69th Street, NYC. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm. Opening Reception and lecture by Charles Jencks: Thursday, March 6, 6 – 8pm http://www.nysid.edu/news-events/exhibitions/maggies-centres-a-blueprint-for-cancer-care RELATED LECTURES: Charles Jencks: Can Architecture Affect Your Health? Thursday, March 6, 6pm Followed by the opening reception for the exhibition Charles Jencks—an architectural theorist, landscape architect, designer, and co-founder of Maggie’s Centres, discusses the connection between an environment, feeling good, and good health. Michael Graves: A Case for Humanistic Solutions in Healthcare Design Wednesday, March 26, 6:30pm Michael Graves will speak about the foundation of his design philosophy and how a personal healthcare tragedy focused his attention on improving healthcare experiences by design. Contemporary Art in Healthcare Environments Wednesday, April 23, 6:30pm Jennifer Finkel, curator of the Cleveland Clinic Art Program, and Diane Brown, founder and president of RxArt, will discuss their work to integrate contemporary into healthcare environments and the affect it has on patients and their families.