Studio Libeskind has completed work on its design for a new Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment facility at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.
The 4,886-square-foot design follows well-known contributions from Foster + Partners, Steven Holl, and Heatherwick Studio as an example of its client’s mission to provide patients with world-class settings in which to receive their care. The project is now the 24th Maggie’s Centre completed in the UK since 1996.
The studio says its design is arranged for the free-flowing movement of patients and their caretakers while giving equal consideration to the needs for both privacy and socialization.
In terms of building form, the Centre is curvilinear in contrast with the surrounding brick-and-mortar buildings on the NHS campus. The design was realized on a small plot that was once a parking lot. As such, its volume expands upwards from the ground floor clad in weathered timber panels and sheathed in glazing along its horizontal double- and triple-height entry cut. An elevated private roof garden is then enclosed on the uppermost level to complete the structure as a final palliative reflecting space for guests and family.
The hospital’s communal kitchen table, as in all Maggie's Centres, forms the central focus of the design, reflecting also the geometry of a curved staircase that joins it in greeting visitors on their way into the building. This version was specially crafted out of oak and timber and finished with a white Corian top by local furniture makers Temper Studio in a pebble-like form created by Daniel Libeskind. Other communal elements included in the program include a small library, yoga room, and interstitial pavilion area made for group reading sessions or games.
Outside the building, a small “nestled garden” designed by Martha Schwartz Partners takes shape in soft- and hardscape spaces and extends to the rooftop garden beset by recovered local plantings. A series of pockets created with the inclusion of a low perimeter Ripple Wall double as alcoves to add further space for patients as the feature undulates across the landscape in a form inspired by the design of Libeskind's 2001 Serpentine Pavilion. This was originally proposed to be a mass timber design, but the scheme was scrapped by Maggie’s over its design’s supposedly “prison-like” exterior facade louvering.
Writing for The Guardian, critic Rowan Moore reviewed it as a convivial yet characteristically jagged Libeskind design whose unique “interaction of form” nonetheless serves as a fitting tribute to the late founder of the program, Maggie Keswick Jencks, who passed away in 2019.
“It has been wonderful to work with Maggie’s on their center at the Royal Free Hospital. The inspired work that Maggie’s does in the healthcare industry is unprecedented. The opportunity to serve patients and provide a thoughtful design is perhaps the highest service of architecture,” Daniel Libeskind added in a statement.
Berlin-based Magma Architecture was also involved in the project as a collaborator.
23 Comments
Bollocks this is unfortunate.
Few things say ‘welcoming’ or ‘care’ like walls that feel like they are collapsing, randomly placed, ugly and discordant windows, and a cheaply-clad, VE’d design. This crass and impractical design was never about “the opportunity to serve patients”, as Libeskind disingenuously claims. Like all of his ill-conceived work, it was only going to be about shoving his usual gimmicks and superficial form-making onto the program. As usual, it’s all about Libeskind being selfish and making sure his ego is satisfied … even if nobody else is. Charles Jenks is fortunate not to have seen this convoluted eyesore.
This man, if a cancer patient, is trying to relax and compose himself while wondering what unexplained wildness is affecting the cells in his body. Libeskind is hardly alone, but it's hard to think of a greater example of design being so utterly out of touch, and you have to wonder when it will be slated for a tear-down.
Unlike fine wine, Daniel Libeskind only gets worse - much worse - with age. Here we see Libeskind willfully unleash his irrational and insatiable need for attention at any cost, in this case at the expense of the building users his design was supposed to serve. Every clunky, cartoonish window, every clashing elevational geometry, every collapsing wall and awkward space proclaims Daniel’s lack of concern for his client, the program and the emotional needs of the cancer patients. The program intended the building to be about patients; Libeskind made it about himself, and only himself. That he persuaded the trustees of Maggie’s Centre to buy into his egomania even as he mocked the foundation’s goals celebrates his skill as a snake oil salesman, although not as an architect of any import.
That's the thing. I don't mind designs that challenge, stretch, even shock us, when they have some kind of point or serve a purpose. This design is just gratuitous. Again, Libeskind is not alone here.
Libeskind, while undoubtedly possessing a creative vision, regrettably fell short in crafting a space that truly caters to the delicate needs of cancer patients. Instead of achieving a design that embodies empathy and sensitivity, the outcome reflects an unfortunate inclination towards self-indulgence and formalism. The building, rather than serving as a nurturing environment for healing, leans more towards an egotistic expression, lacking the nuanced understanding required to create a truly compassionate and considerate space for those facing health challenges.
Let me be the outlier here. I hate the exterior and its detailing with the discordant windows etc, but am pleasantly surprised by the interior space.
Having spent a lot of time going to hospitals with a cancer patient (mom) who eventually passed away, I feel she would have enjoyed this space. Most of the healthcare facilities in the US and UK are so regimented, boring and blasé that they make patients feel even sicker and subjugated to feel like a mere number in the list of patients seeking cancer therapies. Hence I feel this, even with its flaws is not that bad.
Interesting interiors for sure. I'd be curious to see cost/sf on this vs the other recent Maggie's Centers by starchitects.
have you been to a libeskind building with slanted walls? the denver art museum is the weirdest spatial experience you can have, feels like there's no contention and it messes with your balance, at least the first time you enter.
Again, I am comparing this (which may be bad to many of us architects) to regular old cancer clinician's offices which are so drab one may end up feeling sicker than when they entered.
Agree, sameold. The interior spaces are nice. JLC-1, this is better than Denver IMO because the walls are curved, so it's a little less shard-like. I hated the DAM.
Point well taken. Someone should do a study of how so many of our institutional designs enervate and demoralize us. Not just hospitals, but also our schools and civic functions.
The vinyl base is getting me hot.
Yes … the vinyl baseboard …. and those windows that can never be protected with any form of privacy curtain or shade. If people are laughing at Daniel’s desperate struggle for professional credibility and respect, it’s largely because Libeskind’s work so easily invites the mockery it deserves.
Cf. Gehry's Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas:
I think this building is a hoot. I'm not sure, however, I'd want to be treated there, especially if I were slipping into dementia.
Counterpoint:
Yes, but Gehry is the master of hiding boring boxes (aka the formal waiting lobbies and patient rooms) inside the crazy common spaces.
Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health by Frank Gehry | Dezeen
The attention-getting, but intellectually empty formalism might work for a children’s creche or a hot dog stand along a highway. But it seems inappropriate for something as serious as a cancer care centre. It’s like a bad caricature of architecture. But then Daniel Libeskind is a bad caricature of an architect, so his work is innately a silly parody of what real architecture might be. (Separately, you have to wonder what kind of chronic underachievers work for his ‘studio’ …. )
There's a degree of criticism in this thread and other libeskind threads as of late that really stands out to me. I'm sorry but I think some of you are lashing out at this architect for other reasons than the design. And if not, why haven't you all grown up enough to realize that art and architecture is subjective anyways and clients are entitled to choose their architect and designers are entitled to design how they want. Lighten up people
Liebeskind is a one-trick pony who depends on schoolboy-smirk level transgressive outrage to fuel his reputation. "Art and architecture is subjective anyways" is appropriate in his defense because it matches the same level of sophomoric vapidness in Liebeskind himself.
A lot of people consider Liebeskind's level of success and fame to be unduly high because of the many aesthetic and functional shortcomings they see in his built work.
So, in addition to dealing with cancer, patients attending this clinic will now also have to be treated for psychotic breaks?
I think there's a place for pure sculptural buildings but if these forms are disturbing to those with neurological challenges, wouldn't the same be true for those without challenges? And wouldn't the inverse be true that those buildings designed to be harmoniously beautiful be good?
Really, it doesn't take much. This gathering place in another Maggie Center is warm, casual, and relaxing. Just add windows, diffuse light, warm colors, textures, and comfortable chairs in open, flexible arrangement. There is nothing difficult or exceptional about the design, and it well suits its purpose.
https://archinect.com/news/article/150203002/heatherwick-studios-completes-its-first-healthcare-project-a-mass-timber-maggie-s-centre-in-leeds
It is, in fact, Heatherwick's design in Leeds. I doubt he had much to do with what works here, however. He certainly didn't design the furniture.
His overall design intrudes, not for the better, for no purpose I can see. Not his worst, but it is overwrought and precious.
I dunno. You have to expect out-there designs from a Jencks and wife project. The Maggie Center is a showcase for reaches and competition. There are more by Holl, Foster, Gehry, others. These are brand names in our culture, widely recognized, and maybe these centers will bring special recognition to the hospitals, maybe attract funding. Maybe patients and their families will feel they are getting special treatment at a time they could use it.
But the designs, if they don't distract, are empty and make no substantial statement about the culture. Or they reflect the culture the way it is now, one that exists merely to excite and draw attention. They lead to chaos. Or at some point, we simply get bored with them and wait for whatever comes next that will give us a rise.
As for myself, I'm getting tired of funky designs.
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