Architectural critic Charles Jencks once said that a building should speak - that it should express meaning and emotion, surprise and humour, and reflect the values of the culture it sits within. Step inside The Cosmic House, and you’ll find a home that does exactly that.

In this episode, Danielle visits one of London’s most astonishing hidden gems: The Cosmic House in Holland Park, the former home of the late Charles Jencks and his then wife, the landscape designer Maggie Keswick. Designed between 1978 and 1983, the house is a maximalist, multi-layered essay in built form - every inch of it embedded with symbolism, references to cosmology, art history, and post-modern thought. There’s an upside-down dome, a Solar Stair, and a Cosmic Oval: this is not your typical Victorian townhouse.

Danielle is joined by Eszter Steierhoffer, Director of the Jencks Foundation and former Senior Curator at the Design Museum, who walks her through this truly unique building and the mind behind it. Together, they discuss Jencks’ radical approach to architecture, his belief in “radical eclecticism” and his support of Maggie’s Centres for cancer patients following Maggie’s death in 1995, as well as the legacy he left behind - not just in the bricks and geometry of his home, but in his writing, his gardens, and his intergalactic thinking.

Part museum, part manifesto, The Cosmic House remains almost exactly as it was when the Jencks' lived there, and is now open to the public as a site of critical experimentation and creative response. Tune in to discover the legacy of one of architecture’s most original thinkers, and hear how the house continues to inspire artists, architects and visitors alike.

The Cosmic House