Cosmic House

This afternoon we visited the Cosmic House in Holland Park with a group from the V&A. From the front it looks like a typical early Victorian, rather grand, cream stucco house. Once you step through the door, it is a Post-Modernist extravaganza. Designed by architect Charles Jencks between 1978 and 1983, it is now Grade 1 listed (the same as St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey - quite an achievement). It's called the Cosmic House because it is full of ideas, symbols and motifs. It's lucky the family was rich enough to own an estate in Scotland and other houses round the world, because Charles' wife Maggie (who founded the Maggies Cancer Caring  Centres), and their two children, found the house very difficult to live in!