Gehry’s design wins British award

Maggie’s Centre, a cancer treatment facility in Dundee, Scotland, designed by Frank Gehry, has won the Royal Fine Art Commission’s British Building of the Year award, according to the Guardian newspaper. The building, which opened last September, features a lighthouse-like tower and an adjoining structure with an undulating, stainless steel-coated roof. The Santa Monica-based Gehry waived his fee in honor of his friend Maggie Jencks, who laid plans for a network of cancer facilities before her death from breast cancer in 1995. “I dreamed about Maggie constantly and put a great deal of time and emotion into the project,” Gehry told the Guardian. “What came out of it is as good as anything I’ve done.” It’s Gehry’s first building in the United Kingdom.

-- Mike Boehm