麻豆约拍

Once upon a time architects made magnificent buildings in the name of health and wellbeing. The Greeks built spas around the great theatres, the medievals made cathedrals of their hospitals and opened them to pilgrims.

Susan Marling looks at work architects are doing now to dramatically enhance small healthcare buildings - especially Maggie centres which are for cancer sufferers and hospices for people with life-shortening diseases. Many of these buildings are inspirational. They show the power of good design and beautiful gardens in lifting the human spirit and restoring to the patient a sense of dignity and individuality.

Susan speaks to leading architects Rem Koolhaus, Richard Murphy and Ian Clark. She visits the award winning St Oswald's hospice in Newcastle, and the Maggie centre by Frank Gehry in Dundee. Julia Neuberger talks about our contemporary attitude to death and ways in which architects are confronting it.

Producer: Susan Marling

A Just Radio production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2010.