Maggie's Centre Dundee

About this place

Maggie’s Dundee is the only building in the United Kingdom designed by Frank Gehry. It opened in 2003 beside Ninewells Hospital on the edge of Dundee, overlooking the Tay Estuary — a place of quiet but definite presence. Gehry described being inspired by traditional Scottish ‘butt n’ ben’ cottages and by the folded drapery in Vermeer paintings. The result is a small white building with a softly undulating titanium roof — modest at first glance, strikingly unusual the longer you look. The building holds about twelve people comfortably. Maggie’s Centres are built on the idea that architecture itself can be part of cancer care — that a well-designed space lowers anxiety, encourages conversation, and gives patients somewhere to feel human rather than clinical. Dundee was only the second Maggie’s Centre to be built, and the first to commission a major international architect.