In 1995, when the first Maggie’s Centre opened, a year after the death of Maggie Keswick Jencks, it changed the physical landscape of cancer care.
Immediately following the diagnosis in 1993 that her cancer had returned, she and her husband sat in a windowless corridor, processing the news. In the two years that followed, they researched and planned relentlessly to improve the experience for others in the future.
In a contribution to a journal on cancer patient care, Maggie wrote in her essay, that “Above all what matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.”
Enabling that has been a founding principle of these spaces ever since.
To mark thirty years of world-leading cancer care, RIBA North and, photographer, Tabitha Jussa have documented the impact, architecture, landscape and experience of Maggie’s Centres across the UK, to reflect on how important this work, and the philosophy behind it, has become.
On their visits to six centres (Edinburgh, Dundee, Oldham, Wirral, Cardiff and Southampton), the artist and, RIBA curator, Kate Dooley, got to know how the design of these spaces can hold their users.
The photographs are of the communal and private spaces, but also the surrounding landscape and gardens.
Throughout the exhibition, silk organza fabrics offer explanations, but also breaks. These have been dyed with plants foraged from the gardens in each centre, and the foliage is stitched in to bring literal fragments of the space into the gallery.
It is, at every step, a peaceful exhibition, but it’s also one that highlights the need for these spaces. Campaigning for their importance. The result is an exhibition that holds you, and leaves you with a sense of support. Not directly, but in the comfort of knowing these spaces are there, because someone was passionate enough to create them for others.
The lives that have been allowed to thrive in the wake of facing death are shared through document and preservation. This isn’t one of those spaces, but it’s easy to forget it in a room so representative of the history of Maggie’s Centres.
A new centre is planned for Liverpool, on the site of the old Royal Liverpool University Hospital, opening expected in 2027. That these spaces are still growing, is a legacy that Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles deserve.
—
‘Just come in’: 30 years of Maggie’s Centres, is open at RIBA North until 29th November 2026
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
