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

Early life and education

The son of the architect A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon, Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire. He studied architecture at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1955, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London, where he encountered and was influenced by the modernist architect and urban planner Arthur Korn. From 1958 to 1964 he taught part-time at the AA 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. He later also worked with Buckminster Fuller on the Claverton Dome.

One of his more notable projects was the East London Fun Palace (1961), developed in association with theatrical director Joan Littlewood and cybernetician Gordon Pask.

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.

Price died in London, aged 68, in 2003.

References

Notes

Further reading

  • Hardingham, Samantha (2016) Cedric Price Works 1952–2003: A Forward-Minded Retrospective a two-volume anthology, co-published by the Architectural Association (AA) and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
  • Bron, Eleanor and Hardingham, Samantha, eds. (2005) Annotations: v. 7: CP Retriever, Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA), London
  • Hardingham, Samantha (2003) Cedric Price: Opera, London: John Wiley & Sons, London.
  • Hardingham, Samantha and Rattenbury, Kester, eds. (2007) Cedric Price: Potteries Thinkbelt. London: Routledge.
  • Hughes, Jonathan and Sadler, Simon, eds. (2000) Non-Plan: Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism. Oxford: Architectural Press.
  • Muschamp, Herbert (15 August 2003) "Cedric Price, Influential British Architect With Sense of Fun, Dies at 68" (obituary) The New York Times
  • Price, Cedric (1984) Cedric Price: Works II, Architectural Association; republished in 2003 as Cedric Price: The Square Book. London: Wiley-Academy, London.
  • Staff (ndg) "Cedric Price" Design Museum
  • Staff (22 August 2003) "Cedric Price, A leading light of the 'megastructure' movement whose work was guided by amusing and inspirational ideas" (obituary). The Times
  • Finding aid for the Cedric Price fonds at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (digitized items)