Cedric Price

For the British Army officer, see Cedric Rhys Price.

Cedric Price
FRIBA
Born(1934-09-11)11 September 1934
Stone, Staffordshire, England
Died10 August 2003(2003-08-10) (aged 68)
London, England
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge
Architectural Association School of Architecture
OccupationArchitect
PartnerEleanor Bron (?–2003; his death)

Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture.

Early life and education

The son of an architect (A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon),[1] Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire, and studied architecture at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1955, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he encountered and was influenced by the modernist architect and urban planner Arthur Korn.[2] From 1958 to 1964 he taught part-time at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and at the Council of Industrial Design. He later founded Polyark, an architectural schools network.

Career

After graduating, Price worked briefly for Erno Goldfinger, Denys Lasdun, the partnership of Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, and applied unsuccessfully for a post at London County Council, working briefly as a professional illustrator before starting his own practice in 1960.[1] He worked with The Earl of Snowdon and Frank Newby on the design of the Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo (1961).[3] He later also worked with Buckminster Fuller on the Claverton Dome.

One of his more notable projects was the East London Fun Palace (1961),[4] developed in association with theatrical director Joan Littlewood and cybernetician Gordon Pask.[5] Although it was never built, its flexible space influenced other architects, notably Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano whose Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris extended many of Price's ideas – some of which Price used on a more modest scale in the Inter-Action Centre at Kentish Town, London (1971).[2]

Having conceived the idea of using architecture and education as a way to drive economic redevelopment – notably in the north Staffordshire Potteries area (the 'Think-Belt' project) – he continued to contribute to planning debates. Think-Belt (1963–66) envisaged the reuse of an abandoned railway line as a roving "higher education facility", re-establishing the Potteries as a centre of science and technology. Mobile classroom, laboratory and residential modules could be moved grouped and assembled as required.[5]

In 1969, with planner Sir Peter Hall and the editor of New Society magazine Paul Barker, he published Non-plan, a work challenging planning orthodoxy.

In 1984 Price proposed the redevelopment of London's South Bank, and foresaw the London Eye by suggesting that a giant Ferris wheel should be constructed by the River Thames.

Personal life and death

Price was the partner of the actress Eleanor Bron. They had no children.[6]

Price died in London, aged 68, in 2003.[6]

Recognition

In 2002, Price was awarded the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts.[7]

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Cedric Price: Architect-thinker who built little but whose influence was talismanic". Independent. 13 August 2003. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  2. ^ a b Melvin J. 2003. 'Obituary: Cedric Price, Hugely creative architect ahead of his time in promoting themes of lifelong learning and brownfield regeneration'. The Guardian, 15 August 2003.
  3. ^ "The Architecture and Engineering of The Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo" (PDF). University of Westminster, Department of Architecture. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  4. ^ Mathews, S (11 January 2006). "The Fun Palace as Virtual Architecture: Cedric Price and the Practices of Indeterminacy". Journal of Architectural Education. 59: 39–48. doi:10.1111/j.1531-314X.2006.00032.x. S2CID 110328304.
  5. ^ a b "Cedric Price". Daily Telegraph. 15 August 2003. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  6. ^ a b Muschamp, Herbert (23 August 2003). "Cedric Price, Influential British Architect With Sense of Fun, Dies at 68". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  7. ^ "Kiesler Prize 2002". 4 February 2018.

Further reading