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^Last Maggie Centre in Nottingham is a bright, fresh for the treatment of cancer. Jonathan Glancey on a project that will bring the best of the big names in architecture

is a tree house, really, "said Piers Gough, the architect of the last Maggie Centre, compelling green building in the grounds of Nottingham City Hospital .. Composed of four interlocking ovals and bright, the center of the outbreak of a steeply sloping site surrounded by trees is accessible by a wooden bridge - and would not be at all surprised if White has opened the door and showed him around.

The princess fairy comfortable. Once you have gone through that door modest, cozy interior, lit by a lantern of glass on the stairs, is blue and green pastel, soft armchairs covered with floral fabrics in bold, warm wood floors, balconies and taking the trees. There are sculptural vases holding fresh flowers, pop-art paintings, and seen through other parts more or less where you are. From a purely architectural point of view and design view, some buildings of the hospital - this side of the other eight centers Maggie built in Britain since the 1990s - are also welcoming

collaboration optimistic, rebellious, between Gough, director of CZWG, poppy, post-modern practice started in 1975, and the designer Paul Smith (a child of Nottingham), that Maggie is clearly designed to make smile to visitors. It is designed for cancer patients seeking information, counseling, therapy, and others to share their experiences.

friendships were made many centers as the first Maggie - designed by Richard Murphy - opened in Edinburgh 15 years ago. More than half a million people visited one of these shelters for cancer care, founded by Maggie Keswick Jencks, the architect, historian, landscape architect and philanthropist who died of cancer shortly before the the first was completed.

"Maggie was very forgiving of architects with over-the-top ideas," says Gough. "His own experience has been in Chinese gardens. I started the project in Nottingham play with the image of the window "Moongate" circular in mind, the book of Maggie in Chinese gardens. In some ways become an oval building. Frank Gehry, remember me saying that when he was designing the Maggie Centre in Dundee Maggie appeared in a dream telling him she did not want his histrionics. "Really? "That's what Frank remembers - and Maggie is not someone I will never forget I was watching over me, too .."

Gough

So who knows how to turn the drama of architecture, has also played a game of soft new building. It was very convenient and fun, though: Gough she describes as little more than an American style log cabin owned by steel rings - oval lock characterize the four sides more or less identical. However, log cabins are rarely encountered in smooth, ceramic Sherwood green, full of colorful and Paul Smith rugs, throws, cushions and lamps.

Smith did more incursion its stores to provide the building. Just look at the wide variety of comfortable chairs and all the generous floral fabrics. "I took pictures of the flower show in Chelsea," says Smith, "and was printed on the fabric covering the chairs. I can not enough furniture re-line time to be a little more" Smithy "-. also oversized checks and stripes Maharam and special custom screens with pictures of dogs and cats

Maggie are generally one-story, Gough, crammed into a small area between the trees, has two floors. On the ground floor, the visitor is drawn beyond a desk and a library to a stone floor to feel big, bright and very interior of the kitchen opens onto a balcony. Short flights of stairs on either side lead to a couple of rooms at a mid-level landing, while the floor is therapy and "lying" toilets, tiles and a large meeting room light oriented due south.

No appointment to visit a center for Maggie. It is not clinical, but what Jencks sites should be "serene beauty" to support those undergoing treatment for cancer. His own experience of ugliness so many hospitals that made him determined to create centers built at once by love - love of beauty, too - and clinical considerations. To date, the buildings created in his name have tended to divide, in terms of design, hosting flamboyant and discreet, but all. The deployment of staff architects toll could not be more impressive Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Rem Koolhaas. But then, Charles Jencks and her husband, historian, architect and builder of "earth sculptures" were enthusiastic supporters and friends of these very different talents.
Currently, there are more planned for Oxford, Swansea, Barcelona and even Hong Kong. As Koolhaas, founder of one of two centers of Glasgow, said recently: "It is unusual for us to do good things." Gough, meanwhile, said that the centers "to achieve the utopia of all architects, on a small scale. "

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