LONDON, ENGLAND.- British architect Cedric Price, 69, died this past Sunday. He designed the aviary at the London Zoo in 1969 and his influence in theory and production have changes architecture in the last years. Cedric Price was one of Britain’s most provocative and visionary architects, whose projects and drawings push against traditional architectural boundaries and delight in questioning the impact of time and space on the built environment. Possibilities of architectural re-use, expansion, reduction and ultimately obsolescence are explored, creating propositions for an architecture that responds to, and changes with, time and movement.
A singular figure of his generation, since the 1960s Price’s focus on time-based interventions has continued to earn him the admiration of both contemporary architects and artists alike.
Cedric Price founded Cedric Price Architects, London, in 1960 and began his practice with an aviary for London Zoo, designed in 1961 with Lord Snowdon and Frank Newby. Among his other realized projects are the Inter-Action Trust Community Centre, Kentish Town, London; the Olympic Information Complex for the Munich Olympic Village; Stratford Railway Station; and Dockland Development for Hamburg, Germany.
Price’s reputation and influence rest chiefly, however, on the radicalism of his ideas. Among his highly original proposals are the Fun Palace in London; the Potteries Thinkbelt Project, which imagined the re-use of an abandoned railway line for a roving university located in the train carriages; and the Trondheim Student Centre Project (with Archigram Architects). Characteristically, Price argues against the production of permanent, specific spaces for particular functions, stressing instead the need for flexibility and the unpredictability of future use. He has consistently defended the importance of modern technologies in architectural design and construction. At the same time, he seeks to analyze the specific motivations that might give rise to a structure in the first place. "Technology is the answer," he has said, "but what was the question?"
Cedric Price received his undergraduate degree in architecture from Cambridge University in 1955 and his diploma from the Architectural Association in London in 1957. His work has been published in many journals and modern architectural histories, including a profile in the 5 September 1996 issue of Architects’ Journal (UK) and the 1984 book Cedric Price (Architectural Association).