Charles Jencks
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2012
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the architectural critic and writer Charles Jencks.
Born in America, for the past four decades he has lived and worked in Britain - where his designs are as likely to be found in sculptural landscapes as buildings. Perhaps his most significant legacy, though, is the work he did with his late wife, Maggie Keswick. They worked together to design Maggie's Centres - a series of practical and beautifully-designed buildings to give information and support to people with cancer.
He says: "When you have cancer, there's many things which you have to do aside from the struggle - it's not just a medical problem, it's a social problem - of how you tell the children, how you tell your boss - and above all, as Maggie said, it's not to lose the joy of living."
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. |
| 0:02.0 | Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.5 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio broadcast. |
| 0:11.0 | For more information about the program, please visit bbc.co.uk-radio4. |
| 0:30.0 | My cast away this week is the architect and writer Charles Jenks. |
| 0:39.0 | In the 70s, he called time on modernism, describing it as dogmatic and soul-crushing. |
| 0:45.0 | He plotted its demise to the minute. |
| 0:47.0 | A cultural critic, much of his own work, has been in landscapes, |
| 0:51.0 | forming sweeping, sculptured hills and double helixes in soil and grass, |
| 0:56.0 | inspired by the structure of DNA and sediment gardens influenced by the forms of the universe. |
| 1:01.0 | And if that all sends a bit as a taric, he's best known as one of the principal forces behind Maggie's centres, |
| 1:08.0 | inspired by his late wife. |
| 1:10.0 | These are practical, beautiful buildings designed by world-class architects, |
| 1:15.0 | where anyone affected by cancer can find support and help. |
| 1:19.0 | And you say, Charles Jenks, that architecture is the ultimate public art. |
| 1:23.0 | Explain that to me. |
| 1:25.0 | Well, you have to see architecture all the time, if you're in the city. |
| 1:30.0 | Most people look at their feet, but actually it's forced on you. |
| 1:33.0 | And architects have to decide what they're going to symbolise and bring to the consciousness. |
| 1:39.0 | Therefore, they have to figure out what's important, what to express. |
| 1:42.0 | And for me, it's not only nature, but the larger picture of the universe. |
| 1:47.0 | Do you actually think it really is that important, the sort of buildings we find ourselves in? |
... |
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