Charles Jencks, architecture historian, landscape architect and director of Maggie's Cancer Care Centres has passed away at the age of 80.
Jencks is widely regarded as the leading thinker on postmodernism in architecture, which he defined with his seminal book, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.
He died yesterday at his home in London, the Maggie's Centres charity has confirmed.
Architect and critic Charles Jencks has died at the age of 80. Photo by View Pictures via Getty Images
Jencks co-founded Maggie's Cancer Care Centres in 1995. Inspired by his late wife Maggie Keswick Jencks, the charity commissions major architects to design comforting places of respite for those afflicted by cancer, as well as their friends and family.
Norman Foster, Amanda Levete and Frank Gehry are among the illustrious list of architects who have designed a Maggie's Centre in locations across the UK and now mainland Europe. Jencks' house in Holland Park, London, was Grade-I listed by Historic England in 2018. He designed it along with his late second wife and the postmodern architects Terry Farrell and Michael Graves.
Plans are afoot to turn it into an archive museum called the Cosmic House, which will be open to the public by appointment only.
The cancer care designed by Norman Foster for the charity Jencks co-founded. Photo by Nigeel Young
His house in Scotland, Portrack House, is already home to the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Jencks drew on his enduring interest in modern cosmology ...