Landscape architect, author, and cultural theorist, Charles Jencks knows a thing or two about alchemy.
Most recently he has taken a scarred landscape in rural Scotland and transformed it into something extraordinary.
Constructed from material found on the site of an old open cast mine, 'The Crawick Multiverse' is like a giant scientific map of the stars with its spiraling paths, representing the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies, a "supercluster" of galactic mounds, and a mudstone path carved with figures representing different theoretical arrangements of the universe.
Jencks is also the co-founder of the Maggies' Centres which support for people with cancer.
Since 1996, twenty centres have been built by distinguished architects, encouraged by Charles, and two awarded the Stirling Prize for architecture.
This year he received the prestigious Soane Honours in America for his visionary work and contribution to Architectural history.
He talks to Kathryn Ryan.
