Introduction

..
 In the 1960s, London witnessed some of the most unusual Archigram
front cover, 1 97 3
architectural projects ever conceived. 'Swinging London' was
already a mecca of many exciting developments in popular
culture, from the counter-culture anthems of the Beatles and
Rolling Stones, to the psychedelic fashions of Carnaby Street and
the tantalising scandal of Mary Quant's miniskirts.
A decade before Andy Warhol began to paint soup cans,
the artists of London's Independent Group had revelled in the
vernacular imagery of Pop Art. Not to be outdone, architects
joined the fray. Young architects in the Archigram group began to
produce psychedelic, science fiction images of self-constructing
plug-in cities and spidery buildings that would walk among the
ruins of a post-apocalyptic world.
Some of the most innovative ideas for new architecture
originated in the work of the late British architect, Cedric Price,
whose work has continued to inspire architects in the decades
since. Price proposed radically new concepts of architecture and
redefined the ways in which the architect might enhance human
life, extend human potential, and promote social change. Where
many pundits and social critics saw only the waning of an old
order or the emergence of a new fad or fashion, Price perceived
architectural possibilities amidst the apparent cultural anarchy
of post-war Britain. His architecture reflected the changing
society in those heady times, but it also acted as a catalyst to
expedite inevitable social transformation. This book tells the
story of Price's groundbreaking architecture, how his work
expressed the changing character of life and society and how his
work has helped to shape the architectural discourse of today.
While the psychedelic pop culture of the 1960s has faded, Price's
ideas have continued to fascinate and inform architects for more
than four decades.
The character of British life and national identity changed
dramatically during Price's lifetime. By 1945, the British Empire
was all but gone, war and promises of post-war reconstruction
had radically altered the expectations of the British people. Few
were willing to tolerate the elitism and traditional dominance
of the upper class culture in British life. James Meller, the long­
time assistant and biographer of visonary engineer, Buckminster
Fuller, put it bluntly: "After the war, the English class thing
fell apart. People who came back from the war were no longer
prepared to take any more of that crap."1
Labour's 1945 election manifesto, Let us Face the FutUl'e,
promised "the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth of
Great Britain-freely democratic, efficient, progressive, public
spirited, its material resources organised in the service of the
British people".2 In 1946, the post-war Labour government began
to reshape Britain into the new social democracy that the public
had come to expect, by initiating the Welfare State reforms.
Architects struggled to keep pace with the needs of the new
British Welfare State, but the Modernist pioneers of CIAM and
the pre-war MARS group were ageing and their earlier radicalism

8 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 -

Introduction 9
 was blunted by the war.3 The 1951 Festival of Britain was a valiant
attempt to boost public morale and create a gentler version of
Modernism to express the democratic and populist architectural
aspirations of the fledgling Welfare State.4The festival architecture
tempered the harsher aspects of functionalist modern architecture
witb. touches of 'English whimsicality' and sentimental V ictorian
imagery. Yet, the sof tened Modernism and the decorative flourishes
of these architectural visions appeared trivial against the grim
social realities and the gritty backdrop of war-torn buildings,
boarded-up windows, and the drab, peeling paint of London. The This is Tomorrow
festival brought a degree of colour and gaiety back into English life, catologue cover, 1 956

but did little to establish a plausible architectural expression of the

rapidly changing political, social, and cultural realities of post-war
England. Other architects chose to express the social aspirations
of the Welfare State through Scandinavian-inspired architecture.
Called the "New Empiricism", this post-war British architectural
style sought to domest1c·ate the formal rigours of Modernism by
illtroducing informality and references to the homely 'Englishness'
of cottages and village life through the use of pitched roofs brick
walls, window boxes, 'people's detailing', and picturesque groupings
in scores of New Towns built across England.
In the early 1950s, a counter-current emerged among young
English artists and architects. Like their literary counterparts,
these 'angry young men', had grown discontented with the
parochial and timid versions of Modernism, and sought instead
to capture the imagery and vitality of popular culture and the
life of the streets in their work. In 1952, a small group of like­
minded young architects, artists, designers, and critics began to
meet at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London and
discuss such iconoclastic subjects as mass-media, advertising,
pop music, science :fiction, violence in the cinema and American
cars. This gathering, which subsequently became known as
the Independent Group, posed the first serious challenge to the
artistic and architectural establishment in Britain and gave rise
to Pop Art, years before American Pop artists thought of it. The
group included Alison and Peter Smithson James Stirling, John
Voelcker, Colin St John Wilson, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi,
Richard Hamilton, Theo Crosby and critics Reyner Banham and
Lawrence Alloway offering aid and encouragement.5 At the 1956
This is Tomorrow exhibition, sponsored by the IOA (and held at
the Whitechapel Art Gallery), members of the Independent Group
expressed an enthusiasm for popular culture and shared their
vision and hope for a future far more colourful than England's past.
While the iconoclastic populism espoused by the Independent
Group represented a major artistic challenge to institutionalised
notions of art and culture, few British architects, aside from the
Smithsons were prepared to reconcile elite architecture with
popular culture. In 1955, Reyner Banham, the most insightful
critic and theorist of post-war architecture, articulated the
disparity between the prevailing ideals of architecture and the

10 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 increasingly fluid social and class structures of the new Britain:
"We still have no formulated intellectual attitudes for living in a
throwaway economy. We insist on aesthetic and moral standards
hitched to permanency, durability, and perennity."6
Banham's historical analysis of the successes and failures of
the architecture of industrial Modernism led him to conclude in
his 1960 book Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, that
although the Italian Futurists had embraced technology and the
inevitability and desirability of continual change, it was the formal
representation of technology that eventually dominated Modern
architecture.7 To Banham, the symbolic 'machine aesthetic'
of Modernism was static and incompatible with technological
progress and contemporary culture. He viewed expendability as
a condition inherent to advanced technological society, but also
as a means through which architects might challenge traditional
architecture culture. He encouraged architects to incorporate
genuine technology into architecture in order to enhance and
promote social and cultural progress.
Through their experiences at the ICA and This is Tomorrow,
Banham and Price became friends, and discovered a common
enthusiasm for new technologies. Their interest was timely,
since they had both grown up in an era when established British
industries struggled to adapt to new technologies, market
conditions, and foreign competition. After the war, Britain granted
independence to former colonies, without which it no longer
had a ready supply of cheap raw materials or protected markets
for finished goods. Despite relative affluence, Britain's post-war
•'
economic growth lagged behind that of the rest of the developed
world. From 1951 to 1964, industrial production grew three times
faster in France than in Britain, four times faster in Germany, and
ten times faster in Japan. During the same period, Britain's share
of the world market shrank from 25.5 per cent to 13.9 per cent,
while its trade deficit soared to 750 million pounds.6
By 1960, the situation in Britain had become so critical that
Labour MP Anthony Crosland publicly complained:

Our production and export performance is almost the

poorest of any advanced industrial country... much of our
technical education [is] equally backward. We cling to every
outmoded scrap of national sovereignty, continue to play the
obsolete role of an imperial power, and fail to adjust to the
new dynamic Europe. Our deplorable post-war architecture
and city planning demonstrate a failure of nerve in the face
of contemporary cultural problems.9

Heavy industry migrated from Britain to the European, American,

and Asian continents while the remaining industries struggled
for survival in the face of stiff foreign competition.10 Between
1951 and 1965, the need for semi-skille d and unskille d industrial
labourers decreased by four per cent, while the demand for skille d

Introduction II
 professionals and technicians increased by the same percentage.11
The result was the disastrous 'Brain Drain' of the 19 50s and
60s, during which the cream of British scientists and engineers
emigrated in a mass exodus. New, more efficient production
technologies meant increasing unemployment, while those who
had jobs worked fewer hours. The working week shrank from 48
hours in 1945, to 45 hours in 1955, and 42 hours in 1965. Post­
war projections predicted a 30 hour work week by 2000, and that ..

workplace automation would soon lead to a predominantly leisure

based economy for Britain. As evidence of this trend, from 1952
to 1962, sales of sporting goods rose by 40 per cent, the demand
for camping equipment by 167 per cent, and the demand for small
pleasure boats by a staggering 1,200 per cent . 12
In his 1962 BBC Reith Lectures, psychiatrist Morris Carstairs
warned that British society was ill-prepared to deal with the
pace and scale of change facing the nation. 13 He believed that in
particular, the British educational system had failed to "equip
the ordinary man with the wish, or the ability, to go on learning
Cedric Price c I 960s
for himself', and to safeguard the mental health of the nation, Image courtesy
he called for dramatic increases in the variety and availability of of Eleanor Bron

1 2 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 educational and self-improvement opportunities.14 In order to meet
the new challenges, Carstairs concluded that the nation's future
would depend on "the accessibility, for everyone in our community,
of the means to develop their innate abilities".1 5 Two years later,
Carstairs joined Cedric Price to begin work on a novel architectural
project called the Fun Palace, which Carstairs believed held the
answer to many of the problems facing the nation. Coinciding
with England's economic and industrial decline and the Brain
.. Drain, Price and theatre producer, Joan Littlewood, developed the
Fun Palace, an innovative idea which would integrate concepts
of technological interchangeability with social participation and
improvisation as an egalitarian alternative to conventional leisure
and traditional education.
The Fun Palace challenged the very definition of architecture, for
it was not really a 'building' at all, but rather a matrix that enclosed ).
an interactive machine, a virtual architecture merging art and
technology. For a brief time, the Fun Palace became a rallying point
for scores of intellectuals who saw it as a vast social experiment
in new ways of building, thinking, and being. A diverse collection
of individuals such as Buckminster Fuller, orchestral conductor
Yehudi Menuhin, and Member of Parliament Tony Benn volunteered
their services to the project. Though never built, the Fun Palace was
widely admired and imitated, and served as a model for Richard
Rogers' and Renzo Piano's 1976 Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In the Potteries Thinkbelt project, 1966, Price expanded
his architectural ideas in the service of revitalising the failing
industrial sector while offering new opportunities to thousands
of unemployed workers. In this project, he proposed to convert a
1
vast area of England's once-thriving industrial heartland in North '"
Staffordshire into an enormous high-tech think-tank. The project /
recuperated derelict industrial sites and railways as the basic
infrastructure for a new school where unskilled British workers
could study science and technology, subjects largely overlooked by
the English universities at the time. Price hoped his scheme would
break down the traditional wall between 'pure' and 'applied' science
and technology, reverse the tide of the Brain Drain, and put Britain
at the forefront of emerging information technologies .
The Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt were not buildings in
any conventional sense, but were instead highly adaptable to the
shifting cultural and social conditions of their time and place. In
these two pioneering projects, Price established an alternative
to the New E mpiricist emphasis on the picturesque and English
tradition, and the Independent Group's preoccupation with the ad
hoc imagery and patterns of everyday culture. These beginnings
heralded a new architectural paradigm of choice, ambiguity and
indeterminacy. Price's designs were constructed situations within
which human events were free to play out at will.
His work was a broadly interdisciplinary synthesis of ideas
and interests which included such diverse influences as Karl
Popper's characterisation of society as inherently fluid, the
uncertainty theories of physicist Werner Heisenberg, Cybernetics

Introduction 13
 and Situationism.16 In the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt, Price
first made use of cybernetics and systems technologies as a means
of ensuring the continual adaptability of architecture to transient
social conditions.
His applications of such technologies were constantly motivated
by his profound understanding of the impossibility of determined
programming within unstable socio-economic conditions. Price
believed architecture was a potential catalyst to promote social
transformation. In Future Shock, 1970, Alvin Toffler underscored
f
this point, citing Price's Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt as
"extreme examples of architecture designed to embody. . . new
fluidity, mobility and transience" in society.17 Toffler noted the
inexorable progress of this social trend, arguing that it made little
difference if these buildings were actually built, since "whether or
not precisely these visions become reality, the fact is that society is
moving in this direction" .18
The reasons for the eventual failure of the Fun Palace and
Potteries Thinkbelt are complex. Political circumstances, the
unconventionality of Price's work and an unwillingness to make
the necessary political compromises were all contributory Fun Palace poster
factors. Nonetheless, he has emerged as a central figure among Black ink on wove paper
75 x 1 25 cm
contemporary architects, and his work has been enormously Image courtesy
influential on the subsequent development of architecture. of Cedric Price Fonds
Price's work defines a new approach to an architecture that Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
resonates and responds to time, place, and reception; ideas central Canadian Centre for
to emerging architectural culture. Architecture, M ontreal

_-'*'ll--f
--·-----

14 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 The first section of this book introduces the main characters.
The first chapter traces Price's development and influences,
examining his formation as an architect. The unusual experiences
of Price's early life seem to have fostered within him a scepticism
towards tradition and convention along with an open-mindedness
towards new ideas. He shared his family's strong sense of political
activism and concern for working class issues. This chapter also
explores Price's search for a new definition of architecture and the
role of the architect. The second chapter introduces the British
theatre impresario, Joan Littlewood, Price's long-time friend and
collaborator. Littlewood's career began in the British Agit-Prop
theatre movement and she eventually became one of the most
important figures in London theatre. In 1963, she and Price began
to develop the Fun Palace as an alternative to both mainstream
theatre and conventional architecture.
Chapters three, four, and five present a detailed chronicle of
the development, significance, and critical reception of the Fun
Palace within the context of 1960s Britain. Chapter six analyses
the political and social factors which contributed to the ultimate
failure of the project. It also considers the evolution of key social
and architectural concepts originating in the Fun Palace and their
influence through Price's later projects, such as the Inter-Action
Centre and Oxford Corner House.
Chapter seven outlines the problems facing British education
at the time, and explores the development of Price's vast project
for the North Staffordshire potteries, the Potteries Thinkbelt. This
chapter also discusses the architectural innovations and critical
reception of one of Price's most ambitious architectural concepts.
The conclusion examines the legacy of these projects and Price's
later work on subsequent architecture, both in Britain and in the
rest of the world, including his influence on architects such as Rem
Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, and Peter Eisenman.
In addition to letters, drawings, and manuscripts from the
Canadian Centre for Architecture and other archives, my research
included extensive personal interviews with Cedric Price, and
other people directly involved with his work. Other interviewees
and correspondents included Joan Littlewood, Eleanor Bron,
Robin Middleton, Archigram members Peter Cook, David Greene,
and Mike Webb, engineer Frank Newby, Mary Banham, Royston
Landau, cultural historian Dick Hebdige, Buckminster Fuller
biographer James Meller, former London parks commissioner
Sidney Melman, and Member of Parliament Tony Benn.

Introduction IS
1964 Lea Valley
and Mill Meads
,,

..
 Price and Littlewood wasted little time pining over the loss of The Lea Val ley, 1 96 3
Glengall Wharf, and began exploring other possible locations T h e s e photographs show
the decline of the River
around London. They listed the criteria for acceptable sites which Lea and its environs, from
could range from anything between two and 25 acres in size: the Civic Trust's 1 964 Lea
Valley Development Plan.

General conditions:
1. Riverside site: current economic usefulness of rivers has
declined, today: more value in enjoyments.
2. Railway sites: reorganisation, dismantling: created
derelict yards, depots. Such sites already have built-in
communications links.
3. Central commercial: large commercial centres finding that
centrally located sites are hard to service, keep up, moving
out into edges.
4. Public parkland: most municipal parkland doesn't take
into account increasing range of open-air, leisure, increase
in personal mobility.
5. New development: open areas, already cleared, awaiting
redevelopment.
6. Pre-war housing areas: under-provided with open space &
social amenities.1

The task was to identify new sites that matched these conditions.
On 15 October 1963, Price and Littlewood met with Leslie Lane
(Director of the Civic Trust and former LCC Chief Planner) and
Michael Dower, his assistant, to discuss the possibility of linking
the Fun Palace to the Civic Trust's plan to develop a 6,000 acre
green belt along the Lea River Valley, in east London.2 Founded
in 1957 by Duncan Sandys, the Civic Trust had emerged from Sir
Patrick Abercrombie's plans for rebuilding post-war London. Lane
had followed the newspaper articles concerning the Fun Palace
and was aware of the difficulties the project had encountered with
the Glengall Wharf site on the Isle of Dogs. In his meeting with
Price and Littlewood he outlined the mission of the Civic Trust and
their plans to redevelop Lea Valley. 3
Lea Valley had a long history. In the year 894, Vikings sailed
up the River Lea to attack Hertford. Eight centuries later, Izaak
Walton described the river as his "lovely river" in the 1653 book
The Compleat Angler. In the eighteenth century, the Industrial
Revolution brought radical changes to the river, through
canalisation, while industry developed along its banks. By the
nineteenth century, the semi-rural Lea Valley was dotted with
mills and factories, but was also a refuge for the inhabitants
of London's East End seeking a day's escape from the city.
Industrialisation had changed the rural character of the area and,
by the Second World War, it was a forlorn wasteland of gravel pits,
ageing railways, and derelict factories.
Sir Patrick Abercrombie recommended the recuperation of
the area in the Regional Plan for London, in which he proposed
combining existing "green wedges" (small open space areas) into

102 The Architecture of Cedric Price

From Ware1 the River Lea flows through
water-meadows to its meeting with the Start . ••

then meanders and divides on its way

to Broxbourne, where houseboats lie ,,,

and so south past the great stretch of

glasshouses between Broxbourne and
Cheshunt • . .

and through the wilderness of gravel digging

and its legacy of pits and derelict machinery

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 103

 a larger recreational green belt ar01md the city. The Abercrombie
Report identified 50 such green wedges within 12 zones that could
be merged to form a circumferential green belt. In the fourth zone,
located in east London, Abercrombie singled out the Lea Valley
as an area that could provide an "opportunity for a great piece of
constructive, preservative and regenerative planning" .4
In August, 1961, Lou Sherman, former taxi driver and socialist
ma:yor of Hackney, decided to follow up Abercrombie's suggestions,
and developed a plan to recuperate the pastoral character of the
Lea Valley. He invited the mayors from Middlesex and Essex-the
neighbouring boroughs and counties of London-to join him in the
effort to reclaim the now 'ignoble stream' as a recreational belt for
use by the million or so Londoners living within two miles of the
valley. On 30 April 1963, representatives from ten local London
boroughs met to consider how the Civic Trust might implement
a plan to develop Lea River Valley for recreation and public use.
The plan was not to return the Lea Valley to the pristine
condition of a pastoral era, but to reclaim it within its inscribed
industrial history:

There should be no pretense that the southern Valley

is a strip of remote countryside. It will be a playground
for Londoners against the background of London. This
background-power stations, gas works, factories, railways,
houses and flats-must be accepted and acknowledged in the
landscape theme. Some of the industrial installations have
their own beauty.5

VALLEY
S i r Patrick Abercrombie's
GREATER LONDON PLAN THE FOUR RINGS
redevelopment plans for
London, 1 944

104 The Architecture of Cedric Price

The Civic Trust agreed to undertake the reclamation scheme, and
Sherman's efforts ultimately resulted in the Civic Trust's 1964 Lea
Valley Development Plan.
The Civic Trust was a non-statutory body, and had no governmental
authority to execute their plans. However, a 1967 Act of Parliament
would establish the Lea Valley Development Plan as a statutory
body called the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.6 In the
meantime, the Lea Valley came under (LLC) jurisdiction. The Civic
Trust would have to coordinate their plans with LCC planners and
the Parks Committee, who would implement the plans for the Lea
Valley. The Civic Trust and the LCC enj oyed good relations, and
both worked closely with the LCC Parks and planning offices.
In their meeting with Lane in October, Price and Littlewood
explained the Fun Palace idea to the Civic Trust director. Lane was
impressed by what he heard, and offered immediate support for the
project. He suggested that Price and Littlewood consider including
the Fun Palace as part of the Lea Valley Development Plan while he
would begin searching for a suitable location within Lea Valley.
Price and Littlewood immediately began work on a Fun Palace
proposal for the Lea Valley Development Plan. They organised
a timetable, which allowed one week for any site visits and analysis,
two weeks to develop the new plans, three weeks to prepare
detailed drawings, and between four and six weeks to produce their
final report. This meant that the proposal would not be ready until
late March 1964, and time would prove to be of the essence.
In early January 1964, Littlewood, Price, Tom Driberg and
Ian Mlli:ardo met to plan a promotional campaign for the Lea
Valley proposal. Driberg had agreed to help coordinate the efforts,
and handle publicity while Mlli:ardo took responsibilty for the
administrative aspects of the project.
Driberg observed that the Theatre Workshop's past efforts to
set up unconventional projects had failed because the objectives
had not been clear. This ambiguity was intentional, Littlewood
argued, so that their efforts might appeal to the broadest possible
constituency. But Driberg insisted that if the Fun Palace were to
succeed, its objectives would have to be clarified.
In a draft of a promotional pamphlet for the development plan
Price and Littlewood did just so:

The basic intention is to provide an environment where the

users can enjoy any conditions and amenities they may want,
can organise and promote exhibitions, entertainments and
meetings . Offlrst importance, however, is the provision of
space where they can make their own entertainment, try out
their own latent skills and desires, learn basic necessities
and obscure trivialities without formality, and have the
opportunity of ::;eeing and investigating those things, old and
new, which are normally available only to the highly educated
or persistent few. 7

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 105

� 106 The Arcllltecture of Cedric Price
 Peter Shepheard
The Lea River
Valley, 1 944
Watercolour
This i llustration
depicts the Lea
Valley reclaimed as
a green wedge in east
London from
Abercrombie's G reater
London Plan, 1 944.

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 107

 While work on the pamphlet progressed slowly, Price and
Littlewood continued to meet with the Civic Trust in order to reach
a final agreement for inclusion of the Fun Palace in the overall
development plan. The meetings did not always run smoothly,
and Littlewood complained after one session that the Civic Trust
officers behaved and thought like "old ladies" .8 She was convinced
they had not taken her seriously, but as she left the meeting, she
happened to glance at their note pads and saw that they had each
been doodling their own version of the Fun Palace. TaJks continued,
and on 4 February 1964, an agreement was finally reached with
the Civic Trust. Now, they had to finish the Fun Palace proposal so
that it could be included in the Trust's brochure, as well as in the
overall Lea Valley Development Plan. The major concern was to
ensure that the Lea River Valley package was ready for LOO review.
At one point in the drafting of a definitive Fun Palace
publication, Civic Trust officials suggested that they omit the names
of all but Littlewood from the final Fun Palace brochure because
hers was the only recognised name associated with the project.
Price was still largely unknown outside architectural circles, and
few people had heard of Gordon Pask or the other members of the
Fun Palace team. For his part, Price did not appear to be concerned
about who was credited for authorship. Littlewood, however, was
not at all happy with this possibilty: "If the designer, engineer
and others suggested in my draft cannot be named at all in this
publicity, the proj ect sounds a complete Littlewood fantasy and I'm
not further on than I've ever been."9
Meanwhile, the Fun Palace continued to make news. An article
in the Observer, October 1964, predicted a continuation of the
leisure trend towards longer holidays and shorter work weeks:

While the engineering unions early last week were discussing

the possible introduction next June of a 40 hour week, a
stream of announcements frdm stores showed that shop
assistants are to join the happy band of five-day-week
workers.... It looks as if fun palaces [my emphasis] may
really pay. 10

But that same month, The Telegraph warned of the pitfalls of new
popular leisure facilities and found cause for alarm in such trends:
"The danger of leisure centres on the fringes of cities is that they
will become the equivalent of the old winter gardens, which were
the one tawdry lit-up place in the wasteland of a seaside town
in the off season." 11 Although the Fun Palace was not specifically
cited, the reference to "leisure centres on the fringes of cities"
could well relate to the proposed use of the Mill Meads site. An
issue of New Scientist from 14 Mayl964 was subtitled "Leisure
and the Arts in 1 9 84", and contained numerous articles about
the present and future of work and free time. In the same issue,
Price and Littlewood published a pair of articles on the Fun Palace.
Littlewood's was entitled, "A Laboratory of Fun" :

108 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Politicians and educators, talking about increased leisure,
mostly assume that people are so numb, or servile, that the
hours in which they earn money can be made little more
hygienically bearable while a new awareness is cultivated
during the hours of leisure....
In London we are going to create a university of the
streets-not a gracious park, but a foretaste of the pleasures of
the future.
The essence of the place will be informality-nothing
obligatory-anything goes....
With informality goes flexibility. The 'areas' that have been
listed are not segregated enclosures. The whole plan is open,
but on many levels. So the greatest pleasure of traditional
parks is preserved-the pleasure of strolling casually, looking
at one or other of these areas or (if this is preferred) settling
down to several hours of work-play.
Besides the activities already briefly outlined, there will be
plenty to engage imagination and enlarge experience.
Many who start by wandering half attentively, or even
sceptically, through the complex will be drawn into these and
other elementary exercises in social observation. In what has
been calle d the acting area, for instance, there will be no rigid
division between performers and audience-a generalisation of
the technique used in Theatre Workshop for many years.12

Following Littlewood's essay in New Scientist, Price elaborated on

the design of the Fun Palace:

The activities designed for the site should be experimental,

the place itself expendable and changeable. The organisation
of space and the object occupying it should, on the one hand,
challenge the participants' mental and physical dexterity
and, on the other, allow for a flow of space and time, in which
passive and active pleasure is provoked. 13

Leisure was also to be the subject of the 1964 Milan Triennale.

In March 1964, Price received a letter from Phillip Fellows, head
of exhibitions for the British Council of Industrial Design (CoID)
suggesting that he submit the Fun Palace concept for exhibition.
Price subsequently met with Giovanni Guaita, an administrator for
the Triennale to discuss matters further. For the supporters of the
Fun Palace, the timing was perfect.
In April 1964, Price received a letter from Guaita, who wrote that
the Fun Palace would make an excellent addition to the exhibition.
Price replied that he had already sent the Fun Palace material to the
CoID, and had included sketches of it, along with notes.
In early May, Price received a copy of a letter from the Milan
Triennale written to Phillip Fellows. They had found the Fun
Palace interesting, and extremely relevant to the theme of the
exhibition. Regretfully though, the Fun Palace would not be
includeain the Milan Triennale, because the CoID had not sent

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 109

 Price's materials, and it was now too late.14 There had clearly been
a miscommunication. Price had given the Fun Palace material to
Fellows in plenty of time, and Fellows had assured him that it would
be among the British submissions for that year. Yet, for reasons
known only to him , Fellows chose to omit the Fun Palace, and
instead selected a series of relatively traditional English sporting
goods and recreation buildings.
A week later, Price received another letter from Guaita, who was
puzzled and upset to learn that the Com had not included the Fun
Palace among the British submissions to the Milan Triennale:

You will have known, by now, of an official letter from the

Triennale in answer to Mr Fellows of the British Council of
Industrial Design, saying it is impossible to exhibit the project
of your 'Fun Palace' in the international introductory pavilion.
I was very sorry and puzzled also. I do not understand
why the British Council of Industrial Design did not include
the project in the British Department, as a matter of fact the
only place where the exhibition's statute foresees that British
citizens may exhibit anything .... Anything accepted by [the]
British Council of Industrial Design would have been accepted
by the Triennale.15

Shortly after, Price received a copy of a letter from the Milan

Triennale to the CoID, enquiring as to the reason for the omission
of the Fun Palace. A few days later, Fellows wrote to Price
explaining that the Fun Palace was not included because-due to
inflation and political turmoil in Italy-the Milan Triennale was
short of funds and might be cancelled altogether. He was vague
as to the exact reason why the Italian crisis had led to the British
CoID's decision to exclude the Fun Palace.16 Fellows concluded that,
although he had great admiration for the Fun Palace, surely Price
would not expect him to jeopardise Britain's other entries for the
sake of one project.
The Milan Triennale debacle was a sign of things to come.
While many people shared the enthusiasm of Price and Littlewood
and supported the Fun Palace, there were others less vocal,
who opposed it. Fellows may have found it too radical, or at least
not profitable enough, and promoted conventional British
recreational products instead.
Was this why Glengall Wharf had failed? While we cannot
know the answer, it is clear that the lowest and highest echelons
of government and society were in favour of it, while mid-level
managers and bureaucrats, charged with routine approvals were
reluctant, and created obstacles to hinder its realisation. With
so much vocal public support for the Fun Palace, those who had
misgivings were reluctant to voice open opposition to the project.
Despite the general optimism, doubts were expressed. Reyner
Banham was concerned about the project's realisation and In New
Statesman wrote:

1 1 0 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 I like very much her project for a sort of London pleasure
garden, including a theatre and other amenities, which she
describes with a zest and wealth of salacious detail unlikely
to win the approval of City Fathers. Of course, her project will
never come to pass. Ifit did it would be like the Festival of
Britain, and we should all hate it; especially Joan.17

Like many others of his generation, Banham shared the realistic

scepticism that resulted from the conflict between unbridled
optimism and dashed hopes that had characterised so much of the
post-war British experience. While the growing Fun Palace cadre
remained largely optimistic, they also took note of the warning in
his letter in New Statesman.
In June 1964, the House of Commons held a debate on the
'leisure question', and among the proposals raised were calls for
the establishment of a new Ministry of Leisure. One MP argued
that because of the enduring "puritan tradition", the English were
"rather shamefaced at having leisure and rather tired of enjoying it.
Leisure ought to be taken more seriously".18 Although Tom Driberg
scarcely mentioned the Fun Palace in his remarks to the House of
Commons, he appeared to be laying the groundwork for support
of it. In the next Sunday Citizen weekly column, he introduced his
readers to technological concepts of leisure, again without referring
specifically to the project:

Our debate last Monday, on sport and leisure, ended in a big

question mark. Some of us look forward to a future-going to
be realised, perhaps by AD 2000-in which automation will
have eliminated drudgery. It is fun to sketch a Wellsian vision
of this coming age of leisure .... By AD 2000, if society has not
been organised rationally, there may be vast unemployment
(mainly among those least fitted for creative leisure); and, for
those still working, less leisure not more. Conservatives argue
that automation will actually make more work.19

Littlewood also made the rounds on the lecture circuit, to spread

word of the Fun Palace. In 1964, she gave a talk about the project
at the east London Fabian Society. As the project's profile began to
spread beyond British borders, Price and Littlewood started
to attract more supporters and volunteers, all eager to join the
effort to realise such a remarkable plan. Buckminster Fuller wrote
to Price from the United States to express his interest and
requested more information.
Artist Felix Topolski, a close friend of both Price and Littlewood
also became an enthusiastic supporter.20 Though not directly part
of the Fun Palace team, he contributed his own endorsement in an
unpublished manuscript entitled "Topolski's Chronicle":

If the centre of London, and the fabric ofits wharves, docks

and warehouses is [sic] wearing away, why not revive

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 1 1

 the possibility of pleasure settled on these banks? . . . May
we propose a fun palace of Thames side. .. . Vauxhall was a
playground where many experiments, later absorbed by the
·

Industrial Revolution, were :first tried out for [Link].

For today's palace by the river is not only a palace, it is not
only for fun, it is for work, not only for delight but risk, not only
to prove how knowledgeable we are but also how ignorant, how
skilled but how unskilled, how cut-off, how parochial. How sad!
Before we fold our hands, stick feathers in our hair and resign
ourselves to being an Anglo-Saxon reservation, let's plug in to
the new age.21

Littlewood and Price also kept in close contact with their mutual
Alexander Trocchi and
friend, Scottish Beat writer Alexander Trocchi, who was a member Allen Ginsberg on the
of the Situationist International and one of the prime movers in steps of the Royal

Britain's culturaJ. undel'.'ground.22 Price subscribed to Trocchi's Albert Hall, 1965

Silver gelatin print
fledgling English Situationist magazine Moving Times, as well as to Image courtesy of
his Proj ect SIGMA [Link]'s Project SIGMA manifesto, John Hopkins

112 The Architecture of Cedric Price

"Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds", 1962, accompanied
by a proposed plan of action which he caJled, 'SIGMA: A Tactical
Blueprint ', were published in New [Link] Review, and subsequently
reprinted by Price in AA Files. Trocchi described the purpose
of Project SIGMA as a "possible international association of men who
are concerned individually and in concert to articulate an effective
strategy and tactics for... cultural revolution".23 Like the Fun Palace,
Project SIGMA focused on issues of leisure and creativity in the
post-industrial age:

Automation, and a general 'socialisation' of vital goods will

gradually and ineluctably dispense with most of the necessity
of 'work': eventuaJJy, as near as dammit, the complete liberty
of the individual in relation to production will be attained.
Thus freed from all economic responsibility, man will have at
his disposal a new plus-value, incalculable in monetary terms,
a plus-value not computable according to the accountancy of
salaried work... pley value. What is becoming is homo ludens in
a life liberally constructed ... [but] there is no solution within the
conventional framework.24

Trocchi lamented that "man has forgotten how to play.... He

is almost afraid of more leisure.... His creativity stunted, he is
orientated outwards entirely. He has to be amused: entertainment."25
Trocchi's Situationist argument was framed within a post-Marxist
interpretation of the role of culture within the affluent, post­
industrial society: the issue was no longer work, but creative leisure.
Trocchi described in detail a utopian community reminiscent of
both William Morris and Black Mountain College:

How to begin? At a chosen moment in a vacant country house

(mill, abbey, church or castle) not too far from the City of
London .... The original building will stand deep within its own
grounds, preferably on a river bank.... We envisage the whole as
a vital laboratory for the creation (and evaluation) of conscious
situations; it goes without saying that it is not only the
environment which is in question, plastic, subject to change,
but men also.26

Although Trocchi's 'spontaneous university' bears obvious

resemblance to the Fun Palace and to Price's later Potteries
Thinkbelt project, it is not clear to what extent Trocchi, Price, and
Littlewood mey ha\Te influenced each other. Price disavowed any
inspiration from Trocchi, and planning for the Fun Palace was
already well under way by the time of their meeting. However,
projects such as Constant's New Babylon and Project SIGMA
probably helped to clarify Price and Littlewood's aims in the
conception of the Fun Palace. Any apparent affinity between the
Fun Palace concepts of creative leisure and the creative strategies
of the Situationist International would hardly be accidental, since

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 1 1 3

 both grew from common ideological and artistic roots. From Troc'chi, Dr;ift of hm
Paiace prornntionai
Price and Littlewood learned of the Situationist strategies of literaturn, l 963
creatively aimless urban wanderings (the derive) and the insertion Black p m1cil, graphite,
b!acl<, blue and r·ed i n !'
on v1ovo pap0v
of random events into ordinary situations (detournemen t) .27 In
the Autumn of 1964 Trocchi and Price met on several occasions to )."/,5 x 13.1 cm
discuss ways to cooperate on the Fun Palace. image courtesy of
C e d ri c Price Fonds
Collection C e ntre
By late 1 964, the Fun Palace consultants had formed individual
committees to complete planning for the project. Each committee
Cent;·o for
Canadinn d'An: h i t e cture/
was charged with developing a specific aspect of the project, such
/\rchitectuve, M ont real
Canadian

as structure, programming, sociology, and cybernetics. Gordon

Pask compiled his thoughts on the project in a manuscript entitled,
"Proposals for a Cybernetic Theatre" (see Appendix B), in which
he defined theatre as conversation between audience and actor. 28
The Cybernetics Subcommittee (see Appendix C) was particularly
productive and met frequently to formulate plans and ideas. Other
scientists that joined the Subcommittee included Lord Ritchie Calder
(whose son Nigel was editor of New Scientist) and Professor Joseph
Rotblat, who had consulted with Littlewood on the 1946 Theatre
Workshop production of the play, Uranium 235.29 The roster also
included cybernetic artist Roy Ascott, historian Asa Briggs,
artist Reg Butler, psychologist John Clark , Ian Mikardo and Tom
Driberg, Pask's partner Robin McKinnon-Wood, and sociologist
Michael Young.30
Pask defined the general goal of the Cybernetics Subcommittee
as the development of "new forms of environment capable of
adapting to meet the possibly changeful needs of a human population
and capable also, of encouraging human participation in various
activities".31 His logistical analysis of the Fun Palace assumed that
at least five major activities would take place at any given time with
an average attendance of between 3,000 and 5,000 people per day.
Activities would rotate in varying cycles from a few hours to several
days, depending on the nature of the activity.
The Cybernetics Subcommittee began to develop mathematical
models of the statistical, psychological, and sociological aspects
of the project. To aid in compiling the mathematical models, the
Subcommittee circulated questionnaires, designed to elicit potential
Fun Palace activities, among their friends . The response suggested
a wide range of activities:

eating resting mutuaJ admiration

ski practice country dancing (requires pocket mirrors)
drinking swimming "do you mind?"
bowling photography (sex)
go-karting restoration of vintage cars drama and operatics
dancing voice patterns archery
music concerts finger painting son et lurniere32

The Cybernetics Subcommittee worked closely with the Fun Palace

Ideas Group to generate possible activities for the Fun Palace. Lists
seem to have been an obsession among the consultant groups.

1 1 4 The Architecture of Cedric Price

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1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 1 5

 At the beginning of August 1 964, John Clark, Ideas Group chair Page from a draft of
and psychologist, submitted his own: "List of 70 Projects for a Fun Fun Palace promotional
literature, with notes
Palace" (see Appendix D) which describes various virtual realities on the administi-ation and
(long before Virtual Reality) which might be created within the Fun operation of the site, 1 963
Strips of typed script
Palace. These included such tantalising suggestions as: washed with brown
watei-coloi- pasted on
The inhabited universe page, with inscriptions
in black pencil, i-ed, black
Why not try a trip around the moon and blue ink
in our realistic space-capsule Simulator? 27.5 x 23.2 cm
Captain Nemo's cabin: Image courtesy of
Cedric Pricefonds,
An underwater restaurant Collection Centre
The grotto of kaleidoscopes Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
The Camera Lucida
Architecture, Monti-eal
The maze of silence
The cybernetic cinema
The fantasy generator
Climb the tree of evolution
The calligraphic cavern33

Such a list resembled scenarios by Italo Calvino, or some of the

Situationist proposals of a few years earlier (especially the urban
mysteries encountered in the "continuous derive " described in Ivan
Chtcheglov's 1953 "Formulary for a New Urbanism") :

Shower-Bath of the Patriarchs

Sports Pharmacy
Martyrs Provisions
Cafe Fifth Avenue
Prolonged Volunteers street
Hotel of Strangers
Wild Street34

While the Ideas Committee generated these quasi-Situationist

scenarios, the Cybernetics Subcommittee was charged with making
them happen. In a 1964 draft of a Fun Palace brochure, they
outlined the proposed organisation of the project, which could be
divided into six organisational zones (see Appendix E).
Zone one would be dedicated to the various types of teaching
machines that Pask and his systems research team had already
developed. In addition, television feeds from coal mines, steel
mills, factories, zoos, farms, the House of Commons, police and
hospital emergency rooms would enable viewers to observe such
environments. In zone two, users could participate in new forms
of expression including but not limited to, theatre and dance.
The cinemas and studios in zone three gave young directors
the opportunity to make their own films, while in the zone four
laboratory, users could conduct their own scientific experiments.
Zone five and zone six provided studio space for painting, sculpture,
dance, and music. The list was not complete, since the Subcommittee
felt that the variety of activities could never be entirely forecast.

I 16 The Architecture of Cedric Price

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1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 1 7

 The Subcommittee also suggested methods of identity-shifting
and role-play. Roy Ascott proposed an "identity bar" which would
dispense paper clothing, enabling people to adopt different and
unfamiliar social and gender roles. He cited the need for providing,
"physical and emotional thrills for satisfying the individual's desire
to exhibit himself and to extend his sense of power and feel the
sensation of sinking into a group".35
The Cybernetics Subcommittee also confronted the potential
problems that might arise from programming conflicting activities
at the Fun Palace. In one meeting, McKinnon-Woods stated:

Suppose that the Fun Palace, one evening, has a play with an
audience of let us say 100 people (no other space than the
auditorium being available) a group of say 200 people wish to
indulge in or watch a football game. Does the football game (on
democratic grounds) oust the play?36

Gordon Pask suggested that through careful physical planning

and the proper cybernetic control systems, such conflicts might be
avoided, and rules would be unnecessary.
As a solution, Price, Littlewood and Pask wanted the day-to-
day configuration and activities of the Fun Palace to be controlled
by cybernetic analysis of usage patterns. They proposed seven
administrative departments to oversee and maintain the Fun Palace:

1 . General Administration
2. E vents
3 . Control
4. Accounts
5. Catering
6. Maintenance
7. Supply37

The Cybernetics Subcommittee also outlined plans to use the latest

computerised punch card system to track and allot resources for
various activities in order to avoid programming conflicts. The
centre of the cards would be punched to indicate specific activities,
while the perimeter holes would be punched to indicate the size,
location, quality, and quantity of the activity. A second system
would also record usage patterns and allocate resources such as
TV and communications requirements, noise output, acoustic
requirements, light levels, probable uses of electricity, heating,
and air conditioning. The memo outlining the computerised punch
card system gives us a glimpse of how cybernetics and electronic
technologies would have maintained the self-regulating environment
of the Fun Palace.
Another concrete (and prescient) use of computer technologies
was the Pillar of Information, also proposed by Ascott, a refinement
of his earlier proposal for a Jukebox Information System. Ascott's
Pillar of information was an electronic kiosk which could display

1 1 8 The Architecture of Cedric Price

a variety of information, based on the model of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. In addition, it would also keep a memory of previous
inquiries. As one person took information from the pillar, a trace
would be recorded of the transaction, and subsequent users would
be able to track the patterns of use, and the system would suggest
multiple knowledge pathways. Ascott envisioned that this would
give users insight into the interests and queries of other Fun Palace
users. Based on patterns of user interaction, the Pillar of lnformation
would gradually develop an extensive network of cognitive
associations and slippages as a kind of non-hierarchical information
map, both allowing and provoking further enquiry beyond the user's
initial query. The resultant web of information and free association
to be produced by the Pillar of Information foreshadowed both the
internet and the more recent rhizomatic theory of knowledge (a
theory that counters the hierarchy of linear associations with the
omni-directional rhizome linking disparate ideas) developed in the
late 1980s by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.38
As the concept of the Fun Palace gradually shifted towards
cybernetic control, planners placed more importance on
quantification and mathematical models based on statistics,
psychology, and sociology. In a 1964 memorandum, Pask enumerated
the specific areas where mathematical models
were needed:

1. Fun Palace and envirorunent, visiting patterns.

2. Mechanical and architectural considerations:
Available capacities, etc.
3. Provision of specific participant activities,
interactive activities.
4. Individual participant situations: teaching machines, etc.
5. Controlled group activities.
6. Communications and information sy stems.
7. Specific conditioning systems: envirorunental variables
for different users.
8. Cy bernetic art forms.39

Pask concluded his list with a rather frightening proposal for one
additional mathematical model:

9. Determination of what is likely to induce happiness.

[my emphasis] In particular the issues of philosophy and
theory and principle involved in determining what is likely
to induce happiness and what role the organisation should
play in relation to the leisure of an automated society.40

This :final point should have alerted Littlewood that the Fun Palace
was in danger of becoming an experiment in cybernetic behaviour­
modification. However, in a 1964 letter to Pask, she agreed with his
goals, and seemed naively oblivious to the possibility that the project
could potentially become a means of social control:

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 1 1 9

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120 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 In this project we also have a microcosm of a society, and Gor-don Pask
in society a man's environment is chiefly determined by Diagr-am of the
cybernetic control
other men. The operators in the social system are like mirth system of Fun Palace,
and sensuality. Its operations are actions or intentions or from a document
related to a meeting
changes in the shade ofjoy and grief. We can to some extent
of the Cybernetics
control these transformations, though, in this case, we and Subcommittee,
our machinery act as catalysts and most of the computation 27 January 1 965
Typographic ink
is done as a result of the interaction taking place between on wove paper
members of the population, either by verbal discourse, 25.6 x 20.5 cm
or by the competitive utilisation of facilities, or by Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
cooperation to achieve a common objective . The paradigm for Collection Centre
the control of such a population is the maturation of a child, Canadien d ' Architecture/
Canadian Centr-e for
the subtle interplay of action and the existing language to
Architecture, M o ntreal
produce thought, and the development of meaning to control
action in society.41

The idea that the Fun Palace would essentially be a vast social
control system was made clear in the diagram produced by Pask's
Cybernetics Subcommittee, which reduced Fun Palace activities
to a systematic flowchart in which human beings were treated
as data. This diagram described three procedural stages for the
control of human beings: at the lowest level, the raw data on the
interests and activity preferences of individual users was gathered
by the punchcards and electronic sensors, and then assigned
prioritised value. This data would then be compiled by computer
to establish overall user trends, which would in turn set the
parameters for the modification of spaces and activities within
the Fun Palace. This modification would be readjusted by a
feedback cycle, by comparing people arriving (unmodified people)
to people leaving (modified people).
Today, the concept of 'unmodified or modified' people would be
treated with a considerable amount of caution. Yet, in the 1960s,
the prevailing and naive faith in the endless benefits of science
and technology was so strong that the Orwellian implications of
modification went largely unnoticed. Pask, Littlewood, and Price
believed that the social control aspect of the Fun Palace would
make a positive and constructive contribution to society, and
cybernetics gradually became the dominant organisational model
for the Fun Palace as the project developed.
In February 1964, Leslie Lane sent Price a map of the Lea
Valley, indicating a small island at Mill Meads as a possible site for
the Fun Palace. Also known as Distillery Island and Three Mills, it
was a 20 acre plot of land, only two miles from Littlewood's Theatre
Royal in Stratford East. Mill Meads had been purchased in the
nineteenth century by Act of Parliament, as a possible location of
a future London storm water collection point. Lane reasoned that
London had managed without it thus far, and he saw no reason why
Mill Meads could not be used for the Fun Palace project instead.
So, not only would the Fun Palace be included in the Lea Valley
Development Plan, but it also had a site, and a splendid one at that.

1 964-Lea Valley and Miil Meads I l l

 Price and Littlewood enthusiastically accepted the proposal, and
set to work with renewed vigour. However, they had promised
that their submission to the Civic Trust would be complete by
March 1964, and were already running behind schedule. Now,
a new and potentially very serious problem loomed.
While national politics in Britain had little direct effect
on the Fun Palace, changes in local politics were to have a
profound impact. Until the spring of 1964, the Civic Trust's
Lea Valley Development Plan fell under the jurisdiction of
the LCC and, despite various setbacks, they were generally
supportive and optimistic. Since its inception, the LCC had been
progressive, far-sighted, and dominated by a leftwing Labour
Party, something that had been a constant thorn in the side of

f.
successive Conservative national governments .
As London grew in size, the more affluent (and largely
Conservative) population began to move outside of central
London and into the suburbs surrounding the London County
boundaries. Since the remaining inner city population was
overwhelmingly sympathetic to the left, Labour's stronghold
over the London Counties had increased. Although the LCC did
not have jurisdiction in the Conservative outlying boroughs,
it was so powerful as to eclipse and overwhelm local borough
governments in these areas. Discontent began to grow in

Aerial photograph
of M i l l M eads in the
Hackney M arshes,
with D i stillery I sland
to the left

I ll The Architecture of Cedric Price

these relatively powerless boroughs and Conservative MPs, who
resented Labour control over their local area, put pressure on the
Conservative government to take action.
In an effort to make demographics work in their favour, the
government moved to create a new council, which would encompass
the whole of the Greater London area. The Tories felt that they
might gain control over this council, since it would include voters
in the outlying Conservative boroughs. In 1 9 5 7, the Conservative
government appointed Sir Edwin Herbert to head a royal
commission on the issue. In 1960, Herbert reported in favour of
incorporating Middlesex County into a "Greater London", in which
Boroughs would be the primary institutions of local government.
The government passed the London Government Act, which
abolished the LCC and replaced it with the less influencial, yet
more vast, Greater London Council (GLC) which employed some
150,000 people. Elections for the GLC were held on 9 April 1964,
and the new system of local government commenced on 27 April
1964. The LCC Parks Committee disbanded, and the planning and
decision-making about parks and open spaces was relegated to local
borough authorities. Rather than coordinate its plans with a single,
progressive government body, the Civic Trust now had to deal with
many different local boroughs, whose politics, policies, and vision
were often at odds with each other and with those of their own.
More than any other single factor, it was the replacement of the
central LCC with the GLC that jeopardised the success of the Fun
Palace. Because the Lea Valley Development Plan now came under
local borough jurisdiction, Price and Littlewood had to contend
with local borough authorities in seeking approvals and permits.
Despite the continued and enthusiastic support of Leslie Lane and
Sidney Melman, there was no guarantee as to how the new local
authorities would respond to the idea. In addition, the GLC system
ushered in a period of jurisdictional confusion over exactly who was
responsible for what. The LCC Parks Committee closed up shop, and
Sidney Melman moved on to head the newly formed Establishment
Committee, responsible for training and bringing ill-prepared
local government authorities up to speed as to how to handle their
new responsibilities.
The interim Parks Committee, now headed by Melman's
replacement, a Mr Hallowes, remained in operation as a caretaker
department during the lengthy transition period. As local authorities
were not prepared to take responsibilty for the parks which now
came within their jurisdiction, the interim Parks Committee retained
authority over Greater London for several months, until local
borough authorities were ready to assume control.
The change in London government had a profound impact on all
aspects of municipal planning. The effects were not immediately
obvious but, by the autumn of 1964, an editorial in The Architects '
JoUl'naJ. predicted that "the future of town planning in London-and
therefore of London itself as an agreeable place in which to live and
work-looks gloomy".42

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 123

 The GLC system would eventually prove ungovernable. Although Site plan of the Fun
Palace Pilot Project
it had been a Tory initiative, when the Conservatives regained
on Hawley Road i n
power under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, one of their first acts Camden Town, 1 964
would be to abolish it. Black ink and blue pencil
on wove paper
For the Fun Palace, and for the entire Lea Valley Development 3 5.5 x 39. 1 cm
Plan, new difficulties also arose from the merger of West Ham and Image courtesy of
East Ham into a single new borough called Newham. It was not Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centi-e
clear who would have jurisdiction over Mill Meads or the Lea Valley Canadlen d'Architecture/
in general-the local borough or the GLC. Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal
On 6 February 1964, Price met with a Mr Gillian, of the LCC
Legal Department, who explained the implications and potential Diagrammatic sketches
consequences of the London Government Act for the Fun Palace. of basic units and control
systems, Fun Palace
Gillian advised him that the Fun Palace documentation should be Pilot Project in Camden
delivered directly to Melman and the LCC Planning Office well in Town, 1 964
advance of the 9 April GLC election day. Since the LCC would be Black ink, black felt tip
pen, graphite, black ink
formally dissolved on 27 April, he urged Price to obtain approval stamp on wove paper
for the Fun Palace while Mill Meads was still under LCC Parks 3 7.8 x 71 cm
Committee control, and while Melman still had power. If they Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
submitted the Fun Palace plans to the LCC before its dissolution, Collection Centre
they would not have to deal with local authorities or get into a turf Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
war between local government and the GLC. Architecture, M ontreal
However, the London government owned Mill Meads, and
permission to use the land would still have to come from the
Greater London authorities. Under the new GLC system, they were
required to seek permission to use Mill Meads from the valuer,
Mr Woolcott, a chartered surveyor who had been appointed to
supervise all property owned by the London government. By all
accounts, Woolcott could be a difficult person to deal with. Melman
recalled that it was "hard to get anything past him. He had little
imagination and less vision".43
Despite the approaching April deadline, there was nothing that
Price and Littlewood could do. The Civic Trust was not yet ready
to submit their comprehensive Lea Valley Development Plan, and
Price and Littlewood could not very well request the use of Mill
Meads for the Fun Palace itself, as if it were not part of the overall
Civic Trust scheme. They would have to take their chances with
Woolcott and North, once the whole Lea Valley Development Plan
was complete in early summer.
Price was well aware of the implications of the Greater London
Act for the Fun Palace, as he indicated in a memo:

The approach to planning:

Local Goverl1Il1ent adrrllnistrative boundaries have no
particular relevance to such a planning approach [open
boundaries] and it is essential that Local Authority plannmg
officials realise their responsibility to the total area. The
sad spectacle of misdirected civic pride causing Boroughs to
compete with their neighbours in the building of pompous, ill­
suited, so-called civic centres has its absurdities emphasised
by such events as the Greater London Act . . . .

1 24 The Architecture of Cedric Price

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1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 1 25

 An example of a Regional, if not National, built amenity still
requiring local attention and patronage is Joan Littlewood's
Fun Palace . Situated in the Lea Valley and included in the
Civic Trust's Valley Development proposals, it provides a
totally variable range of community and individual facilities.
Cedric Price.44

While the Fun Palace team remained tensely optimistic about Mill
Meads, they also realised that approval of the whole Lea Valley
Development Plan would take a long time.
As an interim proposal, Price and Littlewood came up with the
idea of a series of smaller projects, which would allow them to try
out the Fun Palace concepts. These projects would incorporate the
principles of the Fun Palace on a much smaller, temporary, and
Sketched diagrammatic
more manageable scale: perspectives and
elevations of typical
The Fun Palace, originally planned for riverside London, has layout for the Fun Palace
P ilot Project i n Camden
now been included in the Lea Valley Project, but the realisation town, 1 964
of the scheme will take time. Meanwhile it is obvious that pilot Black i nk, adhesive
schemes, parked temporarily on any available land, will be of great screentone sheet,
graphite, yellow and
value as outlets for districts which lack modern entertainment red adhesive dots on
and educational amenities. Pilots will also provide some specialised wove paper
38.2 x 7 1 . l cm
research for the main scheme .45
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Littlewood and Price discussed the idea with Melman, who proposed Collection Centre
Canadien d'Arch itecture/
a possible site in Camden Town-two and a half acres along Hawley Canadian Centre for
Road, not far from Arnold Wesker's Centre 42 theatre. Price's Architecture, M ontreal

f- ''

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c•

1 26 The Architecture of Cedric Price

assistant, Stephen Mullin, knew the site well, as he cycled past it
on the way to work each day. It was easy to see why the GLC felt
that they could spare this particular location. Hawley Road ran
right through the middle of the site, splitting it into two almost
useless parcels. Moreover, trains rumbled constantly over the
railway bridge that ran over the site. Littlewood was dismayed by
Melman's proposal. Price, on the other hand, was undeterred and
enthusiastically set to work on the Camden Town Pilot Project.
He began seeking planning permission and started to address the
inherent problems presented by the divided property.
A high-level bridge would join the two halves of the site, while
inflatable structures would provide space for programmes and
activities. There would be an auditorium (that served as a nursery
school in the morning and gathering place for the elderly in the
afternoon) , a theatre, concert hall, lecture hall/cinema. Overhead
walkways would span between areas and movable cubes could be
positioned to act as space dividers. There would be an enormous
curved proj ection screen for films and multi-media presentations
that could serve as a changeable backdrop for performances.
Perspective of pi lot
A vast nylon canopy would cover play areas, programme modules, project for Fun Palace
and open-air classrooms. Acoustic baffles would dampen the noise in Camden Town, I 964
of road and rail traffic (noise q ontrol comprised 50 per cent of the Graphite, black felt tip
pen, black ink and black
budget) .45 The Camden Town Pilot Project proposal resembled the ink stamp on wove paper
'Main Proj ect' (the Fun Palace at Mill Meads), only it was much 38.5 x 70 cm
smaller and of shorter duration. Whereas the Main Project was I mage courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
designed for a ten year lifespan, the Pilot Project was intended to last Collection Centre
no more than five years. Price and Littlewood continued to work on Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
this project in parallel with the Fun Palace at Mill Meads. Architecture, M o ntreal

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 27

 Perspective of north-east Image courtesy o(
area of Pilot Project for Cedric Price Fonds,
Fun Palace In Camden Colhiction Centre
Town, 1 964 Canadian d'Archltecture/
Black Ink, black felt tip Canadia'1 Centre for
pen, graphite black ink Architecture, Montreal
stamp on wove paper
37.8 x 76 cm

- --
--.

128 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 m

Brdgc linking H ( and 5 stC11ons

ol 111e
Mobile proJeclor

C o vered way and high l e vel w.i �way

1 n Iron! of .1co·1't1c ballles

ProJPClion 1Crcen in Iron! o l [Link]

parllllly 81tlosed .rei
inllalable aud1l orium
and mobile canleen
larg e

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.
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1 964-Lea Valley a n d M i l l Meads 1 29

 Like Price, Littlewood had a day j ob and she continued to travel
around England on Theatre Workshop business while working on
the Fun Palace. On these various trips , she tried to drum up interest
in the idea of local communities starting their own Fun Palace
Pilot Proj ects. During 1964, she visited Liverpool, Manchester, and
Glasgow to gauge local interest in the concept.
In addition to the Camden project, Price and Littlewood
continued discussions with a number of agencies about setting
up activities related to the Fun Palace in various venues. Covent
Garden held certain promise as one of these ancillary sites .
Discussions between Price and the Covent Garden Market Authority
began in June 1964, however they reached no agreement.
Even after the dissolution of the LCC and the Parks Committee,
Price and Littlewood stayed in close contact with Melman, keeping
him informed of the latest developments and sending him Fun
Palace articles and press clippings . Although he could no longer
help them directly, Melman's knowledge of the inner workings of
both London and local borough governments was invaluable to them
both. In late June 1964, Price and Littlewood met with Melman to
seek his advice on their plans for the Mill Meads site.
In the meeting, they also discussed the possibility of locating
the Fun Palace or one of the Pilot Projects at Vauxhall or near
Euston station. Melman felt that road requirements would make
Vauxhall a difficult sell, but suggested that Price look into sites in
Lambeth, Brixton, and St Pancras. The issue of funding inevitably
came up, and Price explained that the Fun Palace was to be included
as part of the Civic Trust's Lea Valley Development Plan. Melman
was impressed, and said that in that case, perhaps the GLC might
be induced to provide financial support. He also suggested that
Price and Littlewood approach the Ministry of E ducation about
possible funding.
However, just as predicted, the redistricting that resulted from
the London Government Act made progress on the Lea Valley
site difficult. Uncertain as to what to do, Price sent applications to
both the GLC and the borough of Newham. The latest Fun Palace
application had a mixed reception at the GLC. Sir William Fiske
(Council Chairperson), Sir William Hart (Council Clerk), and
Hallowes (Interim Ohair of the Parks Committee) were supportive .
Hackney mayor Lou Sherman was sure that things would fall
into place and urged Price and Littlewood to push ahead with Mill
Meads. Mikardo was not so confident, and in light of the political
climate surrounding the Greater London Government Act,
he encouraged them to keep their options open and to begin
exploring alternative sites.
Meanwhile , the Civic Trust's Michael Dower wrote to Price to
confirm that they would indeed include the project at Mill Meads
in their Lea Valley Development Plan. They would discuss the Fun
Palace in their next meeting with Thomas North. Just after the
dissolution of the LCC in April 1964, Price met with North to explain
the Fun Palace, and how they planned to use Mill Meads. North was

130 The Architecture of Cedric Price

[Link], and promised his complete support for the project.47 He
ctlcl 1 1ot, however, inform Price of a potentially serious conflict that
t.h1•[Link] the realisation of the project. North's office had also
l'noot vod an application for the same site at Mill Meads for a new
rntmpus for the Chelsea Teacher's Training College. Price learned
c 1r t.h le from a headline in the Stratford Express titled: "Fun Palace
n1.o(ltJ 11 quick K0."48
While the Civic Trust began the application process for the Lea
V1tl loy Plan, Littlewood and Price forged ahead with the plans for the
1 ww Mill Meads location. Since they had missed the deadline of the
o l 11L11ge ln London government, the approvals process promised to
l >n oven more arduous.
As the Fun Palace came into focus as a real project, money
n 1 110I'ged as one of the biggest problems facing Price and Littlewood.
'l' hoy had spent almost all of their time and energy coaxing
f(ovoI'nment bureaucracies into endorsing, or at the very least, not
Ol>poslng the project. Now, with the Civic Trust behind them, Price,
1 ,tt,tlewood, and their cadre of volunteers could concentrate on more
oonorete issues, and finance became the greatest of these. They had
11.I WfWS assumed that funding would be found, but thus far, none
w1LH tbrthcoming. Price prepared preliminary cost estimates for
1101wtruction at Mill Meads. Frank Newby had already gone to the
1 1 1 1.e and performed test borings of the soil conditions and calculated
[Link] I'equired steel sizes and weights, on which cost estimates could
I m bused. With the help of Douglas Smith, chartered surveyor, Price
mune up with a preliminary estimate:

1 . Site preparation, service basement, ground deck:

£ 1 ,000,000
2 . Permanent service superstructure:
£1,500,000-£1, 750,00
3 . Units and equipment for all enclosures:
£ 1 ,250,000-£1 , 750,000
4. Large scale fixed equipment, crane, escalators, etc:
£250,000-£500,000
Total:
£4,000,000-£5,000,00049

According to these estimates, they would need between four and

llve million pounds-a hefty sum even by today's standards-to get
the Fun Palace up and running. Although the Civic Trust would help
to assure approval of the Fun Palace in the Lea Valley, it would not
PEW for its construction or operation. The local authorities might be
persuaded to kick in some money from cultural funds generated by
the 'sixpenny rate'. In Blackpool, a five million pound theme park
[Link] Ventureland was being funded with the assistance of local
authorities. Could the Fun Palace count on the same support in the
east London boroughs?
Since status as a registered charitable trust would greatly
enhance the prospects of Fun Palace's funding, Price and Littlewood

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 3 1

 engaged the law firm of Brian Sandelson to begin the process of
establishing the Fun Palace Charitable Trust. In March 1964,
Sandelson's office wrote to the Charity Commission to request
Limited Company status for the Fun Palace.
Work by the Fun Palace Charitable Trust continued throughout
the summer of 1 9 64. The trustees were all on board. They included
Littlewood, Lord Harewood, Yehudi Menuhin, scientist Ritchie
Calder, Buckminster Fuller, Ross Chesterman (the Principal of
Goldsmiths College), Tom Driberg, and Ian Mikardo. They also
found an accountant named Lawrence Kershaw, who volunteered
his services for free.
Several firms, such as Pilkington Brothers Glass Ltd, had
already approached Price about providing materials for the Fun

Civic Trust Lea Valley

Development Plan
front cover, 1 964

LEA VALLE

1: 1 32 The Architecture o f Cedric Price

I 1n l1 1o e . He developed a list of further possible corporate and
nom mercial backers, including Schweppes, Upj ohn, Boots
< l l l o mists, English Electric, Ford, UNE SCO and a number of
ot. hors from British industries .
Discussions with various companies continued over the next
fhw months . Price had lengthy talks with Shell, discussing the
pomiib111ty of using the Fun Palace to highlight Shell products in
1.1 1 0 UK, just as they had done in the US with Raymond Loewy.
I 1 1 1Ln internal memo (copied to Price), a Shell executive wrote:

Cedric Price's suggestion that we might like to take

his Fun Palace as a pattern exercise interests me
tremendously. This might well provide us with the first
advertisement in our series but, in any case, it would
provide us with something for us all to cut our teeth on.50

ft1 1 1 nding remained the crucial issue, and Fun Palace team
1·011.l lsed that if the project were to succeed, they would also have
l.o mount a public relations campaign to develop wider political
1 1 1 1 pport. In mid-May 1964, Price met with Mikardo and Lord
1 1 nrewood to discuss the possibility of holding a dinner at the
1 1 ouse of Lords in order to appeal to peers who might be willing
l.o lond :financial and political backing for the project. In the
1 1 1 1 m mer of 19 64, they began to formulate plans for a 'gold dig'
1 >11Pty. 111 They would need the help of their better-placed friends
I 11 order to entice wealthy patrons such as Sidney Bernstein
( owner of Granada Television) and the supermarket magnate,
1 .ord Sainsbury. Fun Palace Cybernetics Subcommittee member
l l rlan Murphy was now politically well-connected, and wrote to
1 . lttlewood informing her that he was also in a position to help
I.l ie project.
Leslie Lane wrote to Littlewood in June 1964, explaining
l,llat the Civic Trust's final proposal would need to be ready
liotbre 20 July, when the Lea Valley project would be presented
11t a conference. On this date Duncan Sandys, president of the
rn via Trust, presented the Lea Valley scheme to a conference of
looal authorities, convened by the Duke of Edinburgh and Sir
Keith Joseph. The conference was held in a disused pump house
u.t Lea Bridge Road, Leyton.
In his opening remarks, the Duke of Edinburgh stated that
l;he best protection for green belt land was to put it to positive
use for the recreation of the population of the surrounding
[Link]. Otherwise such areas would "disappear under the
p Pessure of housing, industrial and other development".52
The conference unanimously accepted the Lea Valley
ooheme, and further passed a resolution to the Greater London
Council, calling for GLC cooperation in carrying through
the plan. The Civic Trust's pamphlet, A Lea Valley Regional
Park, finally appeared in the summer of 1964, and sparked
I m mediate interest.53 In this publication, Lane and the other

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 33

 Civic Trust Lea Valley
Development P lan
depicting the Fun Palace
at M i l l Meads, 1 964

Below: V i ctoria Park, which could

be linked to the Lea Valley Regional Park
by a landscaped footpath and
cycleway above the N o rthern Outfall.
To the right, above the houses,
may be glimpsed the framework
of the Fun Palace.

M i l l Meads (20 acres)

This is the smallest of the parks, a piece of unused land hemmed in by factories.
Here is proposed the construction of a Fun Palace, the concept of Joan Littlewood,
who is already closely identified with Stratford through the Theatre Royal.

The Fun Palace would stand four-square on open ground, flanked by the tidal
river, with railways and gasometers for its background. There are rail and tube
stations close at hand, buses on the Bow Road, the possibjJity of a monorail station
nearby and easy access for cars. Footpath and cycleway approach the site along the
wide top of the Northern Outfall Sewer.

1 34 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Joan Littlewood
Civic Trust officers made the case for the 'new leisure', proposing

presents the ""1'f

that British industry should concentrate less on gadgets and
equipment than on the development of new environments and
platforms for human activity like the Fun Palace.
The Civic Trust pamphlet listed Mill Meads first among the 16
development areas in the Lea Valley, and gave a prominent place et
f I R Mo
?v.,E�rfl£
tnR
GI A1,,E
W.911�t
· t f1'\ tJ nter tJl
to the Fun Palace:
es t• � · to
o
Mill Meads (20 acres)
1 toy ····
•

s 'O)t
This is the smallest of the parks, a piece of unused land
tu�t'lt er ···· [y'S
sU"" ��50D
·s ·t ?
hemmed in by factories. Here is proposed the construction

EV E R
·

of a Fun Palace, the concept of Joan Littlewood, who

is already closely identified with Stratford [to the
east, immediately adjacent to Mill Meads] through Fun Palace promotional
the Theatre Royal. poster, I 964
Image courtesy of
The Fun Palace would stand four-square on open Cedric Price Fonds,
ground, flanked by the tidal river, with railways and Collection C entre
Canadien d'Architecture/
gasometers for its background. There are rail and tube
Canadian Centre for
stations close at hand, buses on the Bow Road, the Architecture, Montreal
possibility of a monorail station nearby and easy access
for cars . . . . The Fun Palace takes the form of a great open
framework of steel lattice girders and towers, surmounted
by a travelling crane. It is completely flexible in use, can
be open to the sky or closed with tensioned blinds. Within
it can be slung complete auditoria, studios, workshops or
restaurants, with access by mobile escalators and tower
lifts. Halls and galleries, snackbars and entertainment
areas, linked by walkways, can be built and changed at will .
People of all ages and interests will find space to enjoy their
leisure, to relax or be active, at any time, day or night.64

Price, Littlewood, and their team, finally finished their own

pamphlet in early July 1 9 64, just in time for the conference on
the Civic Trust's Lea Valley Development Plan. The pamphlet
was really a folded broadsheet poster, the cover of which carried
the tantalising copy:

Joan Littlewood presents the FIRST GIANT SPACE

MOBILE IN THE WORLD it moves in light turns winter into
summer. . . . toy. . . . EVERYBODY what is it?55

The inside of the brochure featured two large diagrammatic

sections of the Fun Palace in action.
The Fun Palace drawings were framed by text blocks, which
announced: "Joan Littlewood, with architects, designers,
engineers cyberneticians, cooks, topologists, toy-makers,
flowmasters, think clowns, offers you the occasion to enjoy, 2 5
hours a day, space, light, movement, air, sun, water, in a new
dimension. "56 The text continued with a list of activities, each
designed, we are told "for your delight":

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 35

 Jukebox Information, Instant Cinema, Drink,
Observation Decks, Tele-communication, Genius Chat,
Adult Toys, Fireworks, Ralli es,
Nurseries, Swank Promenades , Gossip Revues,
Star Gazing, Recording Sessions, Battles of flowers ,
Music, Hide Aways, Laboratories,
Science Gadgetry, Kunst Dabbling, Concerts,
Theatre Clownery, Dance Floors, Food, Learning
New Service, Gala Days & Nights, Machines,
Ateliers67

At the bottom of the page, four large text blocks enlarged on themes
of "Transport, Choice, Time and the City" :

Arrive and leave by train, bus, monorail, hovercraft, car, tube or

foot at any time YOU want to-or just have a look at it as you pass.
The information screens will show you what's happening. No need
to look for an entrance-just walk in anywhere. No doors, foyers,
queues or commissionaires: it's up to you to know how you use
it. Look around-take a lift, a ramp, an escalator to wherever or
whatever looks interesting.
Choose what you want to do-or watch someone else doing it.
Learn how to handle tools, paint, babies, machinery, or just listen
to your favourite tune . Dance, talk or be lifted up to where you can
see other people make things work. Sit out over space with a drink
and tune in to what's happening elsewhere in the city. Try starting
a riot or beginning a painting-or just lie back and stare at the sky.
What time is it? Any time of day or night, winter or summer-it
really doesn't matter. If it's too wet that roof will stop the rain
but not the light. The artificial cloud will keep you cool or make
rainbows for you. Your feet will be warm as you watch the

Transverse section of
the Fun Palace from
promotional poster, l 964
Photomechanical print
of a diazotype laid down
on board
76.4 x 1 22 cm
I m age courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

e IN9ERNAL VIEW - mid ::::::tion

I' 136 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 stars-the atmosphere clear as you join in the chorus.
'Why not have your favourite meal high up where you can
watch the thunderstorm?
WffY ALL THIS LOT? 'If any nation is to be lost or saved
by the character of its great cities, our own is that nation.'
Robert Vaughn 1843
We are building a short-term plaything in which all of
us can realise the possibilities and delights that a twentieth
century city environment owes us. It must last no longer
than we need it. 58

In addition to the location of the Main Project at Mill Meads, the

pamphlet also listed possible locations for Pilot Projects in and around
London. The brochure also explained that the project would be governed
by a Trust. The Trust's advisers and staff, as well as local authorities,
teachers, scientists and artists would supervise Fun Palace activities.
Littlewood and Price contrived to give the pamphlet the widest possible
distribution, particularly among government and civic leaders.
This broadsheet, along with the twin articles published by
Littlewood and Price in New Scientist in May 1964 (see Appendices
F and G) comprised the most thorough explanation of the enigmatic
Fun Palace to date. They had reason to expect that at last, people Photomontage of the
would have a clear idea of what it was all about. Fun Palace on Lea River
site at Mill Meads, c 1 964
In a June 1 9 64 article on the Civic Trust's Lea Valley Development
Photomechanical print
Plan, The Times described the Fun Palace propsal for Mill Meads, but of a photomontage laid
made no mention of the possibility of a teacher's college on the site: down on board
63.3 x 1 2 1 .S cm
Image courtesy of
Proposals include a permanent circus and playground on 370 Cedric Price Fonds,
acres of Lea Bridge, on ground already used for travelling Collection Centre
Canadien d 'Architecture/
fairs, with a bend on the river used also for the siting of a large Canadian Centre for
circular restaurant and dance hall and possibly an arts centre. Architecture, Montreal

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 137

 Another proposal is for a multi-sports area at Temple Mills ,
with Hackney Marsh playing fields as the nucleus; in this area,
too, a suggestion is for a tree-lined river frontage, with paved
promenade, fountains, cafes and public houses.59

In the summer of 1964, both The Architectural Review and The

Architects' Journal featured short articles on the Civic Trust's Lea
Valley Development Plan. The Architectural Review featured the
plan in its June issue, but made no mention of the inclusion of the
Fun Palace.60 The Architects ' Journal, on the other hand, presented
the Fun Palace plans in great detail.
The BBC wrote to Price, informing him that they planned to
televise a segment on the Lea Valley scheme on their 6 August Time
Out programme.61 Once again, the Fun Palace was riding a high tide
of publicity and the good will of the media.
The most insightful article on the Fun Palace in the summer of
1964 appeared in The Tribune. Entitled, "Play: Ideas for Socialist
Britain", the article explored not only the vicissitudes of recreation,
and the Fun Palace in particular, but also began to hint at the change
in the political tide in Britain:

There is a new, adventurous spirit in London planning, with

the prospect of a Labour Government . . . . The most startling
idea is Joan Littlewood's 'Fun Palace', a temporary structure
to be hung beneath a gantry crane-a 'short term playing' as

Axonometric view of
the Fun Palace, 1 964
Black ink, adhesive
screentone sheet on
wove paper
38.2 x 7 1 . 1 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadlen d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

1 138 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 she calls it, offering dance floor, swank promenades, theatre,
clownery, learning machines, and much else besides . . . . What is a
'Fun Palace'? The word 'fun' has been devalued by advertisers­
'Mm-mmm ! -Toothpaste fun ! '-and makes sensitive people
shudder. The English are supposed to take their pleasure idly; it
is time we took them seriously. If the local authorities responsible
for the development of the Lea Valley scheme are really willing to
include Joan Littlewood's project, we are on the way to a dashing
and invigorating kind of Socialism . . . . This is a challenge. The idea
is an experiment 'in which all of us can realise the possibilities
and delights that a twentieth century city environment owes
us. It must last no longer than we need it'. This is the kind of
experiment in leisure which a Socialist Britain needs. 62

The press continued to express interest in the Fun Palace, covering

various aspects of the project from its part in the Lea Valley plan to
the novel programme and nature of the Fun Palace itself. The New
York Herald Tribune announced that at least one member of the Royal
Family was 'rooting' for Littlewood and her Fun Palace: "Princess
Margaret, a fairly constant member of the Stratford East audience,
said recently: 'I like [Littlewood] ; but I hope when she gets her Fun
Palace she won't grow tired of it.' "63
Playwright and columnist Michael Frayn published a parody of
the Fun Palace in which a :fictitious psychiatrist, Sigismund Cortex,
attempts to understand what fun means.64 The Sunday Telegraph
featured an article on Littlewood and the Fun Palace, which included
a photograph of her in front of a rubble-strewn site with the caption
"one of her possible Promised Lands" . Littlewood took every
opportunity to explain her idea:

I have created an environment of clowns before. I did it at

Butlins, and in a miner's holiday camp, and even in that old slum
in Stratford East. Peasants understand what I mean, and poets.
The last people to understand are people in theatre and films.
But I even have room for them. I can include Ionesco, the utter
negation of delight.
I can put on an American musical for people who really
want to suffer. I have always been consistent. The Fun Palace
must provide the creative conflict about ideas that can replace
mass murder.65

In the same article, Price added that the Fun Palace was "a social
concept in architectural form" . 66
The Archigram group's fourth issue of Amazing Archigram
magazine appeared in the summer of 1964 , providing further
evidence, according to The Architectural Review, that "science fiction
is taking over from terrestrial fact in architecture".67 Despite the
obvious element of 'fun', the reporter at The Architectural Review
noted a serious character to this new architecture. Price, hard at
work on the Fun Palace, promised that while many might say that
"this zoom stuff is all very well but you could never build it. . . it is

1 964-Lea Valley and Miii Meads 139

 being built' .68 The members of Archigram all admired Price, and
followed the progress of the Fun Palace with particular interest.
On reading The .Architectural Review article on the Fun Palace
in January 1965, Archigram's David Greene, then teaching at
Virginia Polytechnic, wrote to congratulate Price, writing that
the "Fun Palace looks fantastic. I am your most ardent and
faithful fan. "69
In August 1964, Reyner Banham finally weighed in definitively
on behalf of the Fun Palace. In an article entitled "People's Palaces",
Banham described three "Instant Xanadus" devoted to public leisure
and pleasure: Centre 42, the new Crystal Palace Sports Centre and
the Fun Palace. Banham concluded that the sharp contrast between
the approaches of the three recreational projects necessarily forced
a choice of direction upon an ambivalent cultural left. To Banham,
each of these projects were deeply rooted in social condescension
and indicative of "a cultural soup-kitchen approach for the under­
privileged, hand-outs of free art for those who have been lucky
enough to escape a grammar-school education" . 70
Despite his sharp criticism and warnings that her motives might
be sentimental, Banham gave Littlewood credit for her belief that the
people deserve 'all-new tackle' instead of warmed-over concepts in
leisure. He wrote:

What is unsentimental-and why the Fun Palace gets my

vote-is that she, and her architects and tech-men, aren't
offering any kind of monument, new second-hand or any-wise.
It really is a kit of parts, and for months now Cedric Price, the
architect involved, has been driving architectural j01ll'nalists
mad by steadfastly refusing to release any picture of what the
Fun Palace will actually look like. He may well not know, but
that doesn't matter because it is not the point. Seven nights of
the week it will probably look like nothing on earth from the
outside: the kit of service towers, lifting gantries and building
components exists solely to produce the kind of interior
environments that are necessary and fitting to whatever is
going on.71

Banham concluded that the Fun Palace was a:

. . . wild, mod dream, no mistake about it, and this is precisely

what gives it its meaning.
What Joan and her team of 'younger creative nuts' (as
she calls them) are trying to create here is an entertainment
kit that the non-institutionalised aspects of leisure can
improve upon, a gigantic junk-playground for sophisticated
grown-up people to whom the handling of mechanical tackle
is nowadays as natural as breathing. How far it will work is
anybody's guess, but the mere offer of such a possibility is an
unprecedented situation which we cannot afford to pass up. 72

140 The Architecture of Cedric Price

A month later, Lord Ritchie Calder published an open letter to
the GLC in the Sunday Mirror urging that the Council support
the Fun Palace:

Let us have, by all means, the University of the Air, to give

depth and meaning to the purposes of life, but let us also have
culture-for-the-hell-of-it.
That is why I am rooting-yeah-yeah-yeah-for Joan
Littlewood and her 'younger creative nuts' who plan to build
a Fun Palace. It is so imaginative that there is nothing in the
world with which to compare it. It breaks through convention
the way the rocket broke through gravity and is as uninhibited
as free-fall in Space. Why don't you show that you are also
'with it' and give us an international 'Festival of Living'-to
convince the younger generation that life is not just a delayed
action H-bomb?73

On the same day, The Sunday Times Magazine carried an article by

Priscilla Chapman on the new "high level of lowbrow fun". Chapman
compared the Fun Palace with Archigram member Mike Webb's
proposed recreational, High-Tech Sin Centre, both of which she felt
permitted flexibility of planning within a fixed frame .
B y this time, interest in the Fun Palace had spread
internationally. Price received a supportive letter from Frederick
Gutheim, director of the Centre for Metropolitan Studies in
Washington, DC, describing his plans for a new Discovery Centre
based on the Fun Palace model (this never materialised) . 74 From
the Institute for Behavioural Research in Maryland, Harold
Cohen wrote that he was "floored" by the Fun Palace project:
"It is an excellent contemporary example of the multi-fingered
technology achievements of environmental control. Bravo to you
and your crew! "75 Towards the end of the year, Littlewood met
with Louis Kahn in New York to talk about the FunP� �
was enthusiastic, and commented to Littlewood on the similarities
between the Fun Palace and a park he was working on in New York,
"your plans for the FUN PALACE are theatre ! Mine's nature-but
they both have the same end in view. "-76
In their annual Year in Design special for 1964, The Sunday
Times concluded that the Fun Palace was the "year's most important
design idea . . . because it offers a prototype solution to rapid
environmental change".77 �

Everyone seemed to agree that the Fun Palace was a wonderful

idea, but was the nation ready for it? Would Price and Littlewood be
able to overcome the bureaucratic roadblocks that had thwarted the
project in the past? Most importantly, they still had not determined
how they would pay for it.

1 964-Lea Valley and Mill Meads 1 4 1

T he End of
the Fun Palace
 The summer of 1964 was a watershed for the Fun Palace. Although
the project continued to enjoy widespread support, there was also
a growing sense of unease, as public opinion started to turn against
the project. A letter to Littlewood from the chair of the Lymington
Community Association reflected the public's growing trepidation
and misapprehensions. The association expressed fears that the
Pilot Proj ect might negatively affect local plans to build a new
community centre, and argued that whereas the Fun Palace was:

. . . obviously going to be an entirely commercial

undertaking . . . the Lymington Community Association . . .
is virtually a voluntary effort supported by the Ministry
of Education and the local education authority. . . . Our
movement needs to go forward at the present time if it is Lou Sherman
not to go backward and if it is to face such keen commercial Image courtesy of the
Mayor's Office, Hackney
competition as is represented by your scheme. I regard this
as a challenge which the Community Centre Movement can
and must face.1

In September 1964, the Civic Trust informed Price that it would

not be able to continue planning the Fun Palace until local Newham
authorities and the GLC had met to discuss the project. Since
the Chelsea Teacher's College had also applied for use of the
Mill Meads site, Leslie Lane agreed to write to Newham borough
architect, Thomas North, to ask that Mill Meads be reserved for
recreation as part of the Civic Trust Lea Valley proposal.
Price sought the advice of Lou Sherman, the mayor of Hackney
who had originally suggested the Lea Valley plan, as to how best
to proceed. Sherman observed that the Fun Palace might fare
better with North and the permanently appointed officers than
with the elected Newham councillors. The potential problem,
as he saw it, was the very indeterminate nature of the project,
and he counselled Price and Littlewood to develop a simple and
straightforward explanation of the Fun Palace, if only to expedite
approval. Should Mill Meads fall through, he also suggested the
Walthamstow Marshes (where a Civic Trust Fun Fair was to be
located) as an alternative site.2
Though well-intentioned, Sherman could not have given worse
advice. North's participation marked the end of any chance
of realising the Fun Palace at Mill Meads . While outwardly
expressing support and enthusiasm, North was privately opposed
to the project and moved to block it by taking advantage of
confusion over the precise name of the site, variously known
as Mill Meads and Three Mill s . On 9 October 1 964, North wrote
to Lane, informing him that a Teachers' Training College had
claimed Three Mills. Since the Civic Trust proposal had been for
Mill Meads and had made no mention of Three Mills, North was
proceeding with the Teachers' Training College application for the
site, suggesting the Civic Trust look elsewhere for a site for the Fun
Palace. Since North argued that there were conflicting applications

144 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Ii 11• 1.1 10 same site, and it is obvious that he was perfectly aware
t.l t nt. 'l'hree Mills and Mill Meads were one and the same place, one
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 t conclude that he was being deliberately obstructionist.
I n a letter to North, Lane replied: "the proposals by the Civic
'l'1•1 1ot were that this area should be included in the overall
1101tome for recreational purposes . . . . I think it would be a great
pll Y If any of the land included in the Civic Trust proposals were
•.

1.0 be committed to other uses.''3 Price and Lane both expressed

oonoern to the GLC that even if the Fun Palace were to be located
nlHewhere, a Teachers' Training College, or even the originally
[Link] storm water treatment plant at Mill Meads would not be
1 ! 1 keeping with the Civic Trust plans, and that this might be the
n rst of many proposals that ignored the spirit of the Lea Valley
I Jovelopment Plan.
This gained the Fun Palace a reprieve of sorts, but North's
1pp sttion had. jeopardised GLC support. Price was cautiously
)pt1 mlstic, and contmued to meet with Nortb. to discuss options
lui· [Link] Fun Palace within the Lea Valley. In a meeting in October,
1 4, North told Price that neither ·the GLC nor local Newham
nuthorities had been officially notified of any intent to build the
l�un Palace on the Three Mills/Mill Meads site. Thus far, North
oxplained, his office had only received an application from the
Chelsea Teachers' Training College for use of the site. Since the
Wun Palace appeared to comprise a key element in the Civic
'!'rust's Lea Valley Development Plan, North advised Price to
tmbmit an application to the GLC and local borough authorities
tbr the site as soon as possible. The approvals process promised
t;o be convoluted, since the GLC held the title to the land, while
local approvals were required. For his part, North would need
drawings and a project description in order to proceed with the
l'eview. The Newham borough treasurer, W D Grover, also sat in on
the meeting, and he said that he would look into the possibility of
using the sixpenny rate to help finance the Fun Palace.
It gradually became clear to Price where North stood on the
issue. In late November, he received word that the Newham
Council would meet the following week to recommend approval
f the Teachers' Training College for the site at Three Mill s , with
•rhomas North s blessing.
While the fate of the main project at Mill Meads remained
uncertain, planning for the smaller Pilot Project on Hawley Road
in Camden Town continued. Although six months had passed
since the Greater London Government Act had abolished the
LCC Parks Committee, the transfer of parks and open space to
local authorities was not yet complete, and the interim Parks
Committee still exercised control over the Camden Town site.
Sidney Melman felt that Price and Littlewood would be wise to try
to seek approval before the Hawley Road property came under
the complete control of the potentially less enthusiastic local
authorities, and he urged his successor, Hallowes, to expedite the
process. Melman intervened on behalf of the Pilot Project, asking

The End of the Fun Palace 145

 LCC Clerk of Council Sir William Hart (still acting in a caretaker­
transition capacity) to do what he could to speed up approvals
for the Hawley Road site. Hart wrote to Price to express support
for the Pilot Project, but regretted that the decision would really
be up to the local authorities, and expressed reluctance to
contradict their views.4
Price also met with Ted Hollamby of the GLC Architects Office
to discuss how to proceed with the Pilot Project. Hollamby agreed
with Hart that the local authorities would have to sign off on the
project, and suggested that Price contact the Lambeth Borough
Council to explain the Pilot Project and request consideration of
an alternate site near Vauxhall Bridge. He suggested that Price
would do well to stress the comparison between the Pilot Project
and traditional public entertainment venues such as Vauxhall
and Ranelagh Gardens. He promised his support, explaining that
his office was looking for ways of increasing temporary facilities
for community activities in the borough. The Vauxhall Bridge
site went nowhere. The owner of the site, National Car Parks Ltd,
expressed the view that the public would be better served by a
parking lot on the site than by some hare-brained pilot scheme.5
Both the GLC and local authorities appeared supportive,
but the indeterminate and hard-to-define nature of the Fun
Palace concept threatened even the smaller Pilot Project.
In late September 1964, Brian Murphy of the Cybernetics
Subcommittee wrote to Price to share his concerns:

Worries: we've got imagination to spare on this project.

Certainly enough for me not to feel a great need to add my
own tuppenceworth. So . . . please may I be the pragmatic

Hawley Road, 2007

Image courtesy
of the author

146 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 down-to-earth, unimaginative, querulous, nit-picking, short-
11tp;hted cynic, and ask more questions . Here goes.
It seems to be that this Camden scheme will inevitably be
110011 a.a a Pilot Project. If we make a balls of it, there will be a
m ighty rushing sound of people getting out from under. So, I
wonder if this thing has been thought through?
Second. How far ahead is design work? You know what
looa.l authorities and their architects are like. They'll want to
1100 something and have it costed. All-too-round figures like
J!,B0,000 won't do.6

'l'l 1nr•o IB no record of Price's response.

Nntlonal elections in October 1964 brought the first Labour
1(1 1 v n 1• 1 1 ment in 13 years to power, with Harold Wilson as Prime
M l 1 1 l11ter. Presumably, a Labour government would be more Jennie Lee
�uol1Ll ly minded, and more favourable to the Fun Palace. But Image courtesy of the

wou ld It intervene at the local level? In the past, the old Labour­
National Portrait Gallery

c l 1 1 1 1 1 l nated LOO had been supportive of the project, but could they
1 11 11 1 1 1 1. on the support of a national Labour government? Price,
1 .[Link], and the rest of the Fun Palace team, had reason to be
1 1 pt.l m l utlo about Labour's support for innovative approaches to
m 1 1 1111Ltlon. In a campaign speech the previous year, Wilson had
n.1 1 no u noed Labour's intentions to establish a nationally organised
1 11 1 1 • 1 1mipondence school, a University of the Mr, aimed primarily at
1 111 1 h 1 1 olog!c al training.
.

' l ' h u irun Palace's best hope for the new Labour government
u.p11n1L1•ed to be Nye Bevan's widow, Jennie Lee, who became
M l 1 1 [Link] of Arts under the new Labour government (until March

Hawley Road, 2007

Image courtesy
of the author

The End of the Fun Palace 147

 1965, when Wilson asked her to head the Department of Education
and Science and establish the Open University) .7 Lee was a strong
supporter of the arts and eager to embark on an expansion of art
and leisure facilities beyond the meagre offerings of the previous
Tory government. In December, The Guardian announced that
Lee would issue an arts policy statement soon. Her tone sounded
promising for innovative ventures such as the Fun Palace:

I consider the expenditure on the arts by the last

Government was extremely trivial. I think their priorities
were all wrong. Looking back on the last ten years, if
members want to be proud of bingo halls, the betting shops,
commercial television and the rest, they are welcome.8

On 23 December 1964, Lee wrote to Price to express her support

for the Fun Palace:

The last thing we would want to do is to insert a drab off­

white super-tent in the midst of grey industrial buildings.
If we could create a space-container with gay awnings and
a 'come to the fair' atmosphere, that would be much more
appropriate. I must also say that I found it a bit difficult to
see how upper balconies and the rest could be arranged, but
please do not be discouraged by any of my questions and
criticisms. I am only too anxious to be helpful.9

To Price, Lee was a potentially important political ally. Littlewood

was more sceptical about their political prospects. Even before the
October elections, in an interview in Vogue, she had claimed:

'The leftwingers are just as old hat as the rest. Harold

Wilson's new plan for Britain-it's a lot of sixth-form scienc e . '
How did the prospects look? 'I forecast disaster for this
cathedral-brothel [the Fun Palace] . I'm throwing myself in
the fan. Who cares ? Someday it'll work.'10

Littlewood certainly had no delusions about the extent of the

financial support that would be required. In an interview in the
Newark Sunday News during a visit to the United States, she
explained that although she had been trying to build such a place
as the Fun Palace all her life: "I'll need millions, and it will run
at a tremendous loss which must be paid by the government,
which wastes money in libraries and universities where people
don't learn anything." 11
While Ian Mikardo was still using his connections among
the wealthy and powerful to secure financial backing for the
Fun Palace, Price met with Sir William Fiske in October 1964
to find out ifthe GLC might underwrite the Fun Palace. Fiske
explained that the GLC would help to finance the bulk of the Civic
Trust's Lea Valley Development Plan, but that this would require

148 The Architecture of Cedric Price

p11. 1 · l l 1 Lmontary legislation that could take up to two years. The
1 11u1t1 fill' GLC support of the Fun Palace, he continued, would rest
1 11 1 t1 v l < l once submitted as to its social value and whether it would
1 11 1 1 1 1 p0Lo with the Battersea Fun Fair from which the GLC derived
1 ·n v r 1 1 1 u o . 1 ;i In the end, the GLC decided that the Battersea Fun Fair
w 1 1.11 more profitable than a not-for-profit Fun Palace .
I 11 tihe autumn o f 1964, i n order t o enhance the prospects for
n 1 1 1< t mt sing, Littlewood and the project solicitor, Brian Hope,
1•nno l lod a final agreement to incorporate the Fun Palace as a
1 1 1 1 1 1 pr•ofit charity trust. On 1 December 1964, Fun Palace Ltd
w 1 1.11 oHLablished with a capital of one hundred pounds, divided
1 1 1 1.1 1 [Link] hundred shares of ten shillings each. However, the
1 1 1 •1-!n1 1 tsation was still not a registered trust, and without charity
11l.1Lt.1 1 G , fundraising would remain difficult. Sam Goldsmith, of
1 .1 1 1 Hlon's Jewish Free Press, suggested that Price and Littlewood
m1t.1Ll>l !sh a trust, suggesting that this would open the door to
v n.l'lous Jewish philanthropic organisations, such as the Simon
M 1 1.l ' k s Charitable Trust, the Isaac Wolfson Foundation, and
t I 1•n1 1ada Television's Sidney Bernstein. Several potential financial
I 1nnlrnrs had shown interest in the project, including Bernstein,
I 1 1 1 I. 1 1one committed to the providing funding.
1 1 1 llis August 1964 article in New Statesman on the Fun
I 11Ll11oe, Reyner Banham implored Sidney Bernstein to make up
1 1 1 1 1 mind to support the Fun Palace: "Choose, Bernstein, now ! "13
By December 1964, Price, Littlewood, and the Fun Palace
1.1 1nm were finally ready to submit official applications for both
1.1 1 0 main project at Mill Meads and the Pilot Proj ect on Hawley
1 1.1 >1Ld in Camden Town. An article in The Evening Standard broke
1.1 1 0 story of the Pilot Project, announcing negotiations with the
< 1 1 ,C : for the Camden Town site with the headline: "Littlewood
111 1 1 1 1 Palace plans get under way".14 On 17 December 1964, they
1 1 1 1 l i rnitted an application under the Town and Country planning
not1 of 1962 for a flexible education and entertainment centre
1Lt. Mill Meads.15 The following day, notice was given of a similar
npplication for a temporary public amenity complex at Hawley
l [Link].d in Camden Town.16
At last, official applications for both the main and pilot Fun
l '11lace projects were in place. North informed Price that the Mill
M eads application would be on the agenda of the next Newham
Planning meeting scheduled for 25 January 1965. However, in
1111rly January, North wrote to Price informing him that the GLC
Valuer, Henry Woolcott, had strongly objected to the use of Mill
M eads for the Fun Palace.
Plans and applications for both the pilot and main Fun Palace
projects were in the works, but the main project at Mill Meads
was on hold until the local borough meeting in late January.
While the Fun Palace supporters waited, tension began to mount.
[Link] across the Atlantic, The New York Times described the
waiting game:

The End of the Fun Palace 149

 Who'll get the Fun Palace, the World's first Giant Space
Mobile-London or New York? . . . An application has been
in the timorous hands of the GLC for over a year. . . . Miss
Littlewood's bubble has solid backing . . . but so far, no
Government OK. Price and Miss Littlewood are pressing
the authorities hard. They are convinced it will go up-and
if necessary, somewhere else. 'If we could find a site in New
York .. . ' says Price.17

While Price and Littlewood tried to think of ways to get around

the roadblocks that North and Woolcott had thrown in the path
of the project at Mill Meads, the Pilot Project also began to face
local opposition. Price attempted to calm the local boroughs, who
were afraid that a Pilot Project might be a permanent disruption,
by emphasising its temporary nature: "It is considered essential
that any such development proposed should be of a sufficiently
temporary nature to ensure that long term development plans are
not impeded by its presence." 18
Local newspapers only fuelled misapprehension and fear. On
22 January 1965, West London Press carried a story about local
opposition to the Hawley Road Pilot Project entitled: "Church slams
'Fun Palace' project for Chalk Farm. "

Parents, teachers and clergy i n the parish o f Holy Trinity,

Chalk Farm, are alarmed at a plan to build a 'community
amenity complex' including a 'fun palace' on a recently
cleared site at Clarence Way, NW l , which is just across
the road from the church and the Junior mixed and
infant school. The vicar (the Rev. I M Scott) has roundly
condemned the scheme, the headmistress and her staff
deplore it as 'a retrograde step', and the Parochial Church
Council are asking the London City Council to veto the plan.
'We object to the plan rather strongly' , said the vicar at
Holy Trinity Church on Wednesday evening.
'It is exactly the wrong sort of thing to put up beside a
church. The letter I received refers to a "temporary building
for two years", but nobody is going to put up a thing like that
for two years and then knock it down. '19

Littlewood decided to go and meet with the local residents to

try to win them over, just as she had done two years earlier in
Millwall. She went to a small meeting of the Clarence Way Tenants'
Association representatives, hoping to convince them and thereby
win the neighbourhood as a whole . The "supreme soviet", as
Littlewood's notes described them-eight middle-aged and elderly
representatives of the association-gave her a frosty reception,
filled with "latent antagonism, scorn and animosity".20 She was on
the defensive, fending off charges that she was only "an annoyance
to the residents" . One man complained: "I've lived here 28 years
and it's worse than ever. Can't sleep, cars banging till midnight.
The young man with two children next to me on shift work

1 50 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1 111. 1 1 't, 11 teep in the day for noise."21 Another argued that the Fun
I '11.l 1 1.1 10 would not attract any of the local residents anyway: "This
r11 l 1 1 1 1 1 [Link] Committee, do you think they understand working
1 1rn 1p!o? Working people are apathetic. We've run this Committee
I �I .vrn u•s, so we know ! " Another spoke for the group: "We want no
1 1 11 11•11 hooligans 'round here, we've got enough. You'd fill up the
p 1 1 l i1 1 , we wouldn't be able to enjoy a quiet pint."22 It did not go well,
I 1 1 1 t. I , I Ltlewood was still hopeful. There was to be a larger public
1 1 1 m 1 [Link], scheduled for the following Wednesday, at which she
11 1 11 1 w she would have another chance to win them over.
H ltlney Melman agreed to accompany her to this second
1 1 1 rmttng and assured her, "you will win the local citizens".23 The
11.l.1 1 1osphere inside the church hall was as chilly as the night
1 11 1 [Link] de. Littlewood presented the drawings, explained the ideas,
t11 1 1 phasising facilities and programmes for children. She tried to
rl n l c l questions, but the audience only talked among themselves.
' 1 ' 1 1 1 1 �enerally agreed assumption was that the Fun Palace Pilot
I ' 1 •c 1,loct was a profit-making carnival, which would attract the
w l ' l l l lg crowd to their neighbourhood: "A new attitude to time and
1 1 1 11Loo? What's she talking about? I'll tell you what it's about, a lot
c 1 1 ' 1 ·owdies infesting the place day and night."24
A vote was taken at the end of the evening. The Pilot Project
w 1 u 1 unanimously defeated, with one abstention, and Price
wondered aloud if that person might have been deaf and had not
I 11111.!'d the question.
Price published a letter in North London Press in order to
c l l 1 1 1ml misinformation by clarifying the differences between the
1 1'1 1 1 1 Palace and the Pilot Project.25 Unfortunately, his letter was
1 1 p11taged by an article in the same issue entitled "Residents
I I 1 L1nmer the Chalk Farm Fun Fair Plan" , which concluded that the
l ooo.J.s wanted a parking lot and health centre on the site instead.
' l ' l i o objections to the Pilot Project continued to receive press
ooverage. The Paris edition of the Herald Tribune featured an
11.1 ·[Link] with the headline, "Worse than War":

The Fun Palace, like most of [Littlewood's] stage work,

is radical for some people. She'djust come from Camden
Town, where the working folk viewed her fun palace
with extreme suspicion.
'We've got all we need here, a museum, a cinema,
and the women have their housework', one man told her
in Camden Town . 26

I l owever, the fear and philistinism of the Resident's Association

was not universal. A few days after the disastrous Chalk Farm
meeting, the following letter appeared in the Hampstead &
I Jlghgate Express:

I read with great weariness the report of the Clarence Way

Estate [sic] Residents Association and their protest against

The End of the Fun Palace 1 5 1

 Q�d on Sun day In a gl1lly
Plmllco, l' uld Up • t .11r· .. �k.
�v1d ' �hddoc k 0� \ dllt�m
I r•�(ur Werit 1 6 t
n the 3 , t)<}() ftct CTib Su1���-x. 0S�rccl,
h, alter a, ,wlddpicad,,. t111 1 1\l r. S m o l l • tt, 'hr al b" "Nol I n • the
I -----+-,..--.....,
u

�
1 "4 Q;-1£ WOllll
•

"1��nf���d
,���..UJ\(0 ril(ltlt\I
.�.l'lllUI\
W . n. . Rfu L) n ic , ,
rt lut .\\r� CcNJ;e �d�ock
Fun Palace 1
1·[ t
't:;
1 1\t' Ur°"•
1n In nnc 'H'Utd: P R t;
F,, Protests
.,
1.:l:11mut • t u u lt�r4. ahc1111
n J. muu<tt. 1ioi -.:: tc on
ed. 1n1t \i4l'11:'t'd 1h:111 n'"''" MORE than SO people living near the site planned for!, �L
I
I •<; •�u•

-:,�
Joao Llttlewood's Fun Palace In Chalk Farm hue! '" " �• s i. c;.>n•s•
Y
iw. hu.,•h wuur� . be vullt!J
1111 wn lwd1 ;inttl'l• I ) F I
... rlttcn tQ the LCC prolrstlng [Link] the schemr. The Tu...i 11 mornlo' 104 cu
F

publh.:' l�ru\th :n lt i r •lie, bounded by Oan:nce Way ilnd Ca�tlehvcn. Road, Albo�l1 !�'•:0/t.
� office..
l

..
11111. "•• orrle<ctJ by 18 su1Touodcd by blocks of LCC Ral and othct homes. <oplr In 1t., ')llo •�•>l ahn
n;;!�

lcl'Hrd ! Cr1�s.1111-.n. ,\hn·1

I
Residents· claim that btc•u•• I ho•• 10 l<l uo •• MuH, ,. 1.4 n o�J v�
Mr � a.m. 11\d corucquonily have �1., him lo u l •Oll llo1pl
� �··· �rll<'•lccl ��IO>I people coming lo I h,C FUD 10 gel ro l>cd •erY urly.
if Hlamn :1�h:r

1Ht"'d C.:o;.1nc-d';. critt111u,, Palace would keep them • Fun P•l•ce

Wilh Surrt1, •�•ri•J 11� 11mcJ
blnlna awor, . , mn1nJrJ.

haJ��n/·��=�lche•Et����:
..
: ut.u\ awa\:e, and that childn:n ou1.>ldc i• will b• <0P<>.<Slbl.e. '

vuJ,;.n
wuul,t h 1H rn lhcu· hut.l• would be i� corys,nnl
Lit" u) 1hor �mn• c ltl'IONT

iin,I [Link] thr ,.1lue nt rt•�h danger a ( being hit by dc-ti:ribc h l;l � ••communil)' thU1 ? J , � '
At <.: JuLsn r U on \\'c-d
n� .,.
1-n1S .1f"'°� ,1h pm· ca rs . amenh)' c-om;:iJu," •tt nftu11\tn
!-, r <: '- k;:· R o :i d ,
and rot
!l J("11h:nt� 1 h � : u W<.iulJ .,
A �ra'lr;rima:n for t'he: LCC rl n [Link] vo>1b '7 � 0 J la H a l la t
•1 n n'Ut, i1 I H J :untl\Hlc �id this wcrlc: �·The a p ollc-m· H1U1 irc>
m: a nJrJ u n 1 l l n
1 00 .,.11:n�toce '1c1h1on "'- J \ Lit tlewood and her ad\•isers tion hes: not )tone bt:forc 1)1,u "" ' • b JoluUns • • 1 u a r c a r
"We decided that Joan

"plant,lnl commhcu )'e1:•

.•t! • n :u th-e lr,41•11) f1�r had just laken this
Ut>[Link] H • t'l'n•n • f Ah·ant
sire

rully
r=:======:=;;-;7;:;;;;;:;;;�;:�==1
trylnit
"r°'"[Link]'it 1,;on"'li1tenunn. because il was easy lo [Link]
111 '3a:d� "'ht:.thM thir taihu than la
"''11 be np,.. ne:d.
(•nd S4muhfn:11: more suhablc;·
u d Chari" Courell,
:-; . n y t, )( t' l l ANr:E� chlJrmian o f tfic Clare-nee \'II)'
Mr.

Trnanu� Assori11don.
. R"c' Uldr.. \'U in·
oJ 1 n 1oit" C' \ Chtii ri�c:i. "We 1lso !oh ,�., 1horo
' · , ,'\1,:. \". ""''h•'\(' -th11� • \ '¥.ICtl' f.u 100 mia:n)' l n H ln�lbl�i
Joon .wwa> f;nin • h i­ •boul 1he wholo ••heme. We

. use.
'' · "1\1.:lu�;; .,. � u r · to u\.t, haJ hc>rcl 1he Fun Pa!oc.

an�T�= �su:o�·r,� �: �,,

i\\,;t.\ L1t"n1td � ,_1.U.'.t,!.: wuuld b< Op<:n li l11>urs • clai·.
t lt J I hb, [Link] ("C1Ml11t elJ but were tolJ that chi> might
, •• f .,. ,ucu uru n . 001 or mls;h& nur be 'he
... ..
uc\. Uij diunlelit i n . a h.
, J ''1111 1th�rr.m mc1nbtt o J ..
ikn1'h o.1nd rottcjll n a::1 • Lilll< woocl ond 1he LCC
poln1lng chi• out."

� ;�� ll��cf1o rc'.�nes\�����1�

Rec� 0,11·i�s s;iid l he-:
g: : u s l i c c s had :z,h·en \-f r� U P IN AR IS
AUSTIN '.I
Mllkr!rll n M r. l\llhur l.a<e�.
(01 Aus-rw ,,
·K "lmn
l
whc;u:r home i n Cl1r�ntC' Way

•·whC'n
c
.., m i l d be a, d .: m a ri d 11 lmmcdial<ly oppcJltc 1hc
•icr. oid : "'We trt • U up In ' ttcn.
s m a l l e r arms tbout 1hc 1ohemic•
hou:1cs wcr<'
a�reed th:n
.. like l h a t i n nea rby lbc
n Road f<tccd t h e Drob­ knocked down we. wecc rold
ot p u n l c-rs ""' J i l i n :�. for lhc:i 1i1c would b(I I. chlldren•1
results, b u t that p l a n ned pl1),rou o J . Non< or
�[Link] Hill would ha\"e oblcc1<d 10 t h • bc<au1c •1 the
us

o r oo m inside. momrnt 1hc chllcl rcn h>ve no·

where bui 1hc- s1rect.1 1 0 [Link].
COU NCTL VIEW Ne>w we ue told 1MJ mon·
, W i l l ia m l H o pk i n , H a m p � [Link] may go up.
CounciJ'.1 1 c n i o r .:issiH.;[Link] "II ii doe1 I wlU probably
ror, .uld the council con� have to give up my Job.
d the office i n Gayrori

l�rs. [Link]
""a9 ad�quatc r n mcel
nd.

*eloff dies
prottiit (tom I ( a m pstead,
' and O l d l l a m p1 t 04 J
cclon Sodolr " " h•n�cd

d�,·��r :�·i�CI��� 1epie1

c1nr, Mr. W. "t,
1. b y ooUehO( /tlr, C. o ,
" l<U1MO

Cqs? Mr 1�.���), �� I
- church �!;' ��,·� ir..!�iln ;:'''
orlr
114 1 n, mo hrr nl H a mptfu d '•

152 The Architecture o f Cedric Price

 Joan Littlewood's Fun Palace. It is depressing to read about
such narrow-mindedness and snobbery-what's so exclusive "Fun Palace Protests"
article from Hamstead
& Highgate Express,
about Camden Town anyway?-with the usual dreary
catalogue of complaints about 'undesirable elements'. Good 26 February I 965
luck to Joan Littlewood. She might bring some life to an area
which, if the residents had their way, would become another
dead, dreary and 'respectable' suburb.
Richard Perry, 43d Nightingale Lane, SW12.27

I 1 1 March 1965, Price received a letter from the GLC architecture

1 topartment refusing permission to build a Pilot Project on the
I l 11wley Road site in Chalk Farm on the grounds that "the proposal
111 likely to cause congestion and detract from the amenities of the
1L1•ea by reason of noise".28 The GLC's only proposed site had fallen
t.h rough. Moreover, there was still no word about their application
li>r the Mill Meads site, nonetheless the Fun Palace team remained
1-fuardedly hopeful.
Although the Camden Town Pilot Project would not be officially
declared dead until November 1965, Cedric Price turned his
nttentions to the project at Mill Meads. Frank Newby was ready
t,o hire extra staff to begin work on the project. In March, Thomas
North of the Newham architects wrote to Price informing him
Lhat the Mill Meads application had been forwarded to the
Ministry of Housing and Local Government for official review
of the Fun Palace as part of the overall Civic Trust's Lea Valley
Development Plan.
Newham borough would make their decision on the use of the
Mill Meads site by mid-June 1965. In May 1965, Price and North
flnally sat down together to review local government concerns
over the proposal. The first order of business was to determine
use classifications and maximum occupancy figures. Neither of
these was easy, since the use was variable, as was the extent of
the enclosure. North helpfully suggested that they classify the Fun
Palace as an open sports stadium rather than as a more restrictive
public entertainment building.
Price also learned that the GLC valuer, Henry Woolcott, would
have final say over Mill Meads and the rest of the Lea Valley
project. North had appeared helpful, but Price sensed a certain
antipathy towards the Fun Palace. He wrote to Leslie Lane, to
communicate as much, and asked Lane to intervene.
Lane wrote back, explaining that there may not be a great deal
he could do to help, since he had his own worries about the Lea
Valley project as a whole:

I am in a pretty tough spot currently with regard to the Lea

Valley. It is now almost a year since we launched the idea,
which has been publicly accepted by the Authorities. Up
until now, however, there has been no staff at County Hall
to deal with it, nor has the provisional committee yet been
set up. Whilst I am, of course, still desperately interested
in the scheme, with my small resources at the Civic Trust,

The End of the Fun Palace 153

 I find it next to impossible to get involved too deeply in the
implementation of the idea. 29

An article in The Observer, entitled " Slow Struggle for Super Park",
underscored the difficulties Lane faced, and that a teachers' college
and storm water retention plant were vying for the same spot at
the site.30 Although the Civic Trust had presented their master
scheme for the Lea Valley almost a year earlier, nothing had
been done to date. The plan still needed nearly 30 million pounds
funding, and no parliamentary action was anticipated before 1966,
almost three years after the initial publication of the Lea Valley
Development Plan. Lane clearly had his hands full trying to keep
the Lea Valley plan going, and had little time to spare for a single
feature of the overall scheme of the Fun Palace.
In the meantime, Price and Littlewood received a letter from the
Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in response to their
enquiry as to the status of their application. The letter explained
that the Fun Palace application would be decided by 15 March
1965. That date came and went, but nothing happened. When he
received a notice that the decision would be delayed yet again,
Price appealed the postponement.
With the prospects for the Camden Town Pilot Project gone,
Littlewood scouted other locations for Pilot Proj ects among
London's docks and dumps and the vacant lots at St Pancras,
Vauxhall, and Hackney. These prospects appeared less promising
than they once had. A member of St Pancras Council disclosed
that the allegedly progressive Labour Council intended to vote
against planning permission for Littlewood's Fun Palace in their
neighbourhood.31 Meanwhile, Price explored possible sites at the
South Bank, near the Shell Centre and London County Hall,
where artist Felix Topolski had set up studios beneath the arches
of the railway viaducts.
Littlewood persuaded Commander Parmiter, the Thames
harbour-master, to take her on a tour of the river to look for
other sites. While sailing down the Thames, Parmiter said to her:
"Land? We dredge it. I'm for you but you're up against commercial
interests and the Ministry of Housing."32 Littlewood asked him
what he thought of St Katherine's Dock as a potential site: "You
don't want St Katherine' s . They're putting a horrible hotel up
there. Can't you stop' em putting up more trash? Take over that
mess at Battersea. Tell 'em what to do with it."33 Littlewood asked
him: "Why can't the government understand the crying need
for such schemes?"34 Parmiter replied: "Don't talk to me about
politicians. They destroyed the British Navy."35
Littlewood began to look further afield. The city council of
Welwyn Garden City was considering a Fun Palace Pilot Proj ect,
apparently eager to shed their town's "dead image''.3 6 Elsewhere,
Edinburgh was not overly enthusiastic to the idea, while Glasgow
and Liverpool were more positive. Price wrote to Walter Bor,
Lane's old colleague at the LCC Planning Office, now in charge of

1 54 The Architecture of Cedric Price

olty planning for Liverpool. Bor was enthusiastic about the idea, but
11uggested that Jennie Lee would need to endorse a Fun Palace for
1 .lverpool. Price wrote to Lee requesting a meeting. On 19 February,
uhe replied and suggested meeting the following month at the Adelphi
I Iotel in Liverpool. Meanwhile, Littlewood's commitment to issues of
olass had been reinforced by the civil rights struggles taking place
during her recent visit to the United States. For the first time, she
related the class struggle inherent in the Fun Palace concept to the
l'[Link] strife in the United States. She began to adopt a new metaphor
!or class warfare in England, referring collectively to the English
lower classes as "we Negroes". 37 In light of her failure to win support
fbr the Fun Palace among working class communities, Littlewood's
Identification with them is ironic.
Littlewood, Price and other members of the team, met to discuss
what had gone wrong with the Pilot Project in Camden. Certainly,
any such future project must be carefully coordinated and planned
to take into account local social and political sensibilties. Perhaps the
Camden Town scheme was too static, and they had failed to stress
the dynamic, changeable nature of the project enough. Price and
Littlewood discussed the idea of a travelling Fun Palace.
Littlewood continued to fight misunderstanding about the project
In general. Like many of those engaged in political struggles in the
1960s, she had become more radical and strident in her rhetoric:

Present universal disturbance and individual distress is

aggravated by obsolete political and social systems. Skill in
the practise of new techniques has outstripped attempts to
understand human frustration and boredom.
Sporadic outbursts of violence have replaced the
annihilation [of the human] race and will increase as bomb
lunacy recedes.
The educational and cultural superstructures require
basic, rapid adaptation if they are to service the new age.
Classification of human potential is still current in schools
and restraint is still misnamed discipline.
Til now, individual break-thro [sic] has only been made at
the cost of long time-wasting battles with a bureaucracy shaped
by the pie-in-the-sky epoch. The old systems are cracking open
but no channels are charted for the energy released.38

Some members of the team were alarmed by Littlewood's

increasingly radical tone, fearing this would create further difficulty
in overcoming negative publicity and gaining widespread appeal.
British newspapers continued to make journalistic hay out of the Fun
Palace troubles. An article in New Scotsman trivialised the 'leisure'
aspects of the Fun Palace, to which Littlewood responded:

This is not in any sense a conventional pleasure ground,

or provider of amusement and entertainment. Nancy
Fotheringham's use of the word 'leisure' is as ineffectual as

The End of the Fun Palace I SS

 the rest of her article. Both words 'leisure' and 'work' are
misnomers. It has been supposed till now that if working WHERE A R E THEY
conditions are made hygienically bearable people trapped in N O W - I N 1 990 ?
a nineteenth century attitude to achievement can suddenly
b)' Niclwla.-..· <larlaud
switch to creative work/play in their free time.
The Fun Palace is a university of the streets, a place to
extend skills and try new ones, where knowledge at present
shut away in obsolete libraries and universities will be
available to every child, and instead of the condescending
attitude to human problems expressed by most sociologists
and planners the belief that each individual can develop to a
level formerly known as genius will be proved in action.
Moving as we are out of pre-history, we need a preparation
for a world civilisation, and this depends on people becoming
their own lawmakers again, and creating systems infinitely
more subtle that those we are ridden with today.39 M u l t 1 - m i l l 1 o n a 1 r e s s Joan L i t t l e ­
: wood is trying t o b u y t h e Isle
· of Wight. 1 0 turn it into a
A statirical cartoon in The Sllllday Telegraph depicted Littlewood F u n Palace .

alongside the caption: "Multirnillionairess Joan Littlewood is trying Satirical cartoon of Joan
to buy the Isle of Wight to turn it into a Fun Palace . " A text balloon Littlewood in the Sunday
Telegraph, 1 8 April 1 965
had Littlewood stating: "I tried to buy bloody London, but they
wouldn't ruddy sell ! "40 The Daily Mail also picked up the scent, and
carried their own editorial criticising the Fun Palace, concluding
that it sounded "more like a sanatorium than a fun palace. And
more like George Orwell than Joan Littlewood. "41
Had Pask's reorientation of the proj ect towards technology and
cybernetic social control come back to haunt the Fun Palace? In
February 1965, one member of the Cybernetics Subcommittee,
concerned about the increasing emphasis on technology in the
Fun Palace , observed that the proj ect was losing focus and was in
danger of becoming a "scientist's toy".42 Although he argued "people
are too intelligent to be duped by an automaton for long", neither
Price, Littlewood nor Pask took any apparent notice of this ominous
trend. However, outside observers had clearly begun to perceive the
authoritarian implications of cybernetics and technology.
Puzzled as to the rapidly deteriorating public perception of the Panorama of the Fun
Fun Palace , in April 1965, Littlewood and Price sought the advice Palace site on the Isle
of Dogs, 2007
of Melville Mark, a public relations consultant. Mark felt that the I mage courtesy
rather loose concept of fun trivialised the Fun Palace image. He
' ' of the authc..·

1 56 The Architecture of Cedric Price

advised that it was important to sell the project as an extension
of the Theatre Workshop idea, particularly in relation to its
educational and sociological value.
Based on their preliminary discussion, Littlewood and Price
decided to hire Mark to promote the Fun Palace. He set to work
and issued a report, listing possible funding sources such as
foundation grants, government, public shares and concessions
fees. He also outlined some of the pitfalls in which the Fun Palace
currently found itself: "The FP is in danger of having arrived at a
survival point. Launched with enthusiasm and animation it is now
threatened with possible ridicule, charges of impracticality and
wishful thinking. "43 To counteract the growing negative publicity,
Mark suggested a series of articles and press releases.
It was none too soon. In June, Plays and Players Monthly
issued a broadsides against the Fun Palace, arguing that it was
condescending and "a strange way of manifesting one's supposed
affection for the proletariat [by treating] them not merely as
children but as mental defectives".44 So damning was the article
that Price clipped out a copy to send to Littlewood, with the written
comment: "I think this bloody article has now caused sufficient
trouble to warrant a counter-blast. "
In the meantime, Jennie Lee's long-awaited paper, "A Policy for
the Arts", appeared indicating the direction and attitude of the
new Labour government towards the arts. Price felt that Lee was
too optimistic in her belief that permanent buildings (old and new)
would be able to fulfill future needs, and that she had not given
enough attention to the role of temporary, impermanent buildings,
such as the Fun Palace.
He criticised Lee's underlying assumption that "liberal and
flexible" funding alone would be enough and claimed it was
necessary to rethink the whole relation of art to society, because
"only then can the unreal, exclusive quality of the arts be replaced
by a general acceptance of their necessity in modern society. It is
the self-conscious re-enforcement of past art forms and the jealous
safeguarding of their formal dispensation that must be altered."45
Lee was turning out to be a consummate politician, and it was not
at all clear if she would ultimately be willing to go out on a limb
to support the Fun Palace over other more conventional projects.
Lee, however, would soon be appointed head of the Department
of Education and Science, and start work on the Open University.
Although Price and Littlewood had not yet realised it, this event
marked the end of any substantive support they could expect from
the Labour government, since Labour politicians and ministers
who might have been willing to back the Fun Palace would now be
preoccupied with the Open University. Price and Littlewood were
becoming more desperate for any sort of government support, and
made overtures to Peggy Pain, an assistant director at the much­
reduced GLC Parks Committee, who agreed to help in whatever
capacity she could.

The End of the Fun Palace 1 57

 Although the Fun Palace remained a great passion for
Littlewood, in the spring of 1965, she accepted an invitation
from the Tunisian government to set up a summer workshop
in Hammamet for young, aspiring actors from Tunisia and
neighbouring North African countries. Perhaps in Tunisia, she
felt, her efforts might be appreciated. Littlewood's sojourn in
Hammamet also provided her with a badly needed respite from
the turmoil surrounding the project.
Tom Driberg gave a brief report of Littlewood's activities
in North Africa in his column in the Sunday Citizen: "A report
from Hammamet, Tunisia, tells of a 'theatre school' there­
launched by President B ourguiba's personal adviser-with Joan
Littlewood as one of the teachers." Driberg took pains to point
out that although Littlewood was now working in Tunisia:

This does not mean that she has abandoned her only­
mooted 'Fun Palace' project. On the contrary, since 'theatre'
to her, means something far wider than the conventional
stage-play and audience, she is able in Africa to conduct
pilot experiments of this project with greater freedom than
in Britain. 'I want to see the fun palace in being before I die,
of a coronary or merely of old age.'46

Littlewood returned to London in June 1 9 6 5 to deal with the

continuing Fun Palace crises .
There was still n o decision o n the Mill Meads site, and
without a definite site, they could not secure financial backing.
Since nothing had been heard from Newham in months, Price
appealed directly to RH S Crossman, the Minister of Housing
and Local Government, requesting that he look into the delay. In
response, an inquiry was scheduled for January of the following
year. Price sent a copy of his request to Henry Woolcott at the
GLC Valuer's Office. On 2 1 June 1965, Price and Littlewood
went to see him at the London County Hall, after which Price
commented in a memo:

I am concerned how little communication there has been

between your department and those already in possession
of information about the Fun Palace. Had we known that
you were interested in detailed information on costing
the Trust we would have put your Department in direct
contact with the Solicitor and Accounts for the Trust.47

Woolcott insisted on Price's patience and understanding,

assuring him that they were "working on it".48
By 29 July, Price still had not heard back from Woolcott, so
he called him to find out what the delay was. The two finally met
in August, and the latter explained that the entire Mill Meads
site would be needed for storm water retention, and could not be
shared with the Fun Palace. Price insisted that Mill Meads was

158 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1 11 i i 1eduled public space and that any other use, including storm
[Link] retention, required ministerial approval. (This may not
I mve been exactly true, since the site had been acquired a century
1 11 1.l 'lier by Act of Parliament for the express purpose as storm
wnt,er overflow.)
r n any event, Price argued that the Fun Palace Chaitable
' l ' 1 ·1 1st had already committed a lot of money in good faith for
1 1.r•c:hitectural and engineering feasibility studies for that site, and
t.l l11t Frank Newby would be ready to start construction in only
1 1. matter of months. Woolcott was indignant, and countered that
l l o was only "trying to help". Besides, he offered, if Mill Meads fell
t.l 1 Pough, perhaps nearby Distillery Island Gust to the west of Mill
M oads) might be used. Price replied that he had already looked at
t.l 10 island, and found that it was too small for the Fun Palace. The
1 1 1oeting ended on a sour note.
'I'he following day, Price received a letter from Woolcott, marked
'oonfidential', in which he reiterated his position that Mill Meads
w ns needed for storm water, but that the Fun Palace could have
I >l 11tillery Island. Price clearly hoped to force Woolcott's hand and
µ;nl n the use of Mill Meads for the Fun Palace, possibly through the
l e 1oal Newham authorities. In retrospect, perhaps he should not
l 1 1 we been so hasty to turn down Distillery Island. It was not the
l d oal site, but certainly better than no site at all .
In the meantime, the Newham Council voted to turn over
I.I le final decision about the fate of Mill Meads to the GLC. This
1 locision meant that Woolcott would have final say over Mill Meads,

Distillery Island, 2000

Image courtesy
of the author

The End of the Fun Palace 159

 and that Price's bluff had been called. Despite Thomas North's
lack of enthusiasm for the Fun Palace, Price felt that the project
stood a better chance with him and the local authorities than
with Woolcott. He immediately filed a notice to the GLC to appeal
against Newham's decision on the ground of the "failure of New
Ham Borough Council to give notice of their decision in respect of
the above development [Fun Palace] within the appropriate period
specified in article 5 (9) of the order of 1963".49
Word of the Fun Palace's failure in Camden Town and the dire
straits of the Lea Valley site had begun to spread. On the Isle of
Dogs, the Millwall Residents Association wrote to Littlewood and
invited her to one of their regular meetings. The Fun Palace might
be having trouble elsewhere, but the association was determined to
get it for the Isle of Dogs.
On 4 September 1965, almost 200 people crowded into St
Paul's church to discuss locations on the Isle of Dogs for the Fun
Palace . The local residents offered various ideas for different
sites: "Why not 'the bog?'" offered one man. Another asked: "What
about the allotments by the mud chute?" That idea was dismissed
summarily: "If you think the PLA will give you those mud flats
you're barmy. The PLA will give you nothing. Get Samuda Wharf! "
Another person added: "What about Cutler Wharf?"50
Someone else suggested that they try again for Glengall Wharf,
where the long-promised park had failed to materialise, and
complained: "Do you know how long we've been trying to get a
park down there?"51 The meeting buoyed Littlewood's spirits, but it
remained to be seen whether or not the local residents association
could have any significant effect on policy-making.

Distillery Island
with gasometres
in the distance, 2000
Image courtesy
of the author

1 60 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 W 1 1 ile the Fun Palace was having a difficult time in London,
1 1 1 l.1 1 1 •ost continued to grow elsewhere. Littlewood spent several
• 1 1 w 1 1 t n Glasgow during September of 1965, promoting the idea
' i i 1 1. l•'un Palace. The idea was particularly well received by William
M 1 1.1 1 I ,ellan, a local publisher who was running for a parliamentary
1 11 1 1 1.I.. MacLellan promised to make Glasgow a great cultural centre
1 1 1 1 · L l l H twenty-first century, and his platform emphasised planning
1 1 1 1 · I . l i e coming age of leisure, and used some of Littlewood's Fun
I 1 1 1 1 1.o e material as part of his own campaign literature.
' .

[Link] Inglis, editor of Art in America, wrote to inform Price

1 . 1 1 1 1.t. ohe was planning to run an article on the Fun Palace during
I . I 1 1 1 winter of 1966.52 On the same day that Price moved his offices
1 1 ·1 1 1 1 1 George Street to Alfred Place, Philip Johnson sent a note to
1 i l 1 m:k on the progress of the Fun Palace:

I am very glad that Reyner Banham suggested you send

your FP plans. The concept is superb, and exactly the
opposite of what I have in mind for Ellis Island . . . . By the way,
how is your project coming? Is there any hope of reality? It
would really be a new step in the world.53

' l ' l 10 .B,un Palace still had the support of GLC members Sidney
M o I man, Sir William Fiske, and Peggy Jay, and prospects of the
1 [Link] for reconsideration of Mill Meads still seemed hopeful. In
1 1 1 l d -October however, the GLC denied the appeal, affirming that
" 1 1. would be happy to assist the applicant in any way possible to
1 1 1 u I a suitable site".54 Realising the bind he was now in, Price had
1 1.l 1 •oady revisited Distillery Island and wrote to Sir William Fiske
1 . 1 mL if the Fun Palace could utilise some of the existing buildings,
t . l i oy might be able to use that site after all.
11'iske reiterated the offer to the Fun Palace trustees of 12.5
1 u n·0s on Distillery Island, plus whatever might be left over on Mill
M oads once the storm water plant was completed. Denying Price
t . l i o use of existing buildings, Fiske explained:

... whilst I can understand your desire to have an area larger

than 1 2 . 5 acres, the Trustees will, I am sure, appreciate that
the possible availability of an area of this size is something
quite exceptional and not likely to be found elsewhere in this
or any other part of inner London.55

I 'rice declined and again stood his ground. A few weeks later,
llo contacted Lou Sherman to discuss the Lea Valley situation.
H herman informed Price that the GLC had reviewed the pending
I ,ea Valley Bill, but had excluded both Distill ery Island and Mill
Meads from consideration. Given the situation, Sherman could
o nly suggest that Driberg or Mikardo might be persuaded to
attach the Fun Palace as a special amendment to the Lea Valley
1 �111. Sherman also mentioned that Peggy Jay had enquired
as to whether the storm water tanks could be located further

The End of the Fun Palace 1 6 1

 downstream, just to the south of the Fun Palace-the GLC
engineers said they could not. He also confirmed Price's suspicions
that Thomas North was opposed to the use of Mill Meads for the
Fun Palace. They might look into using a site at nearby Lea Bridge,
but Sherman had word that North would object to that as well.
If North and the Newham Council had backed the Fun Palace,
Sherman could have bargained more effectively with the GLC for
use of Mill Meads. The River Board might have also objected, but
Sherman pointed out that since he was chair of that body, he could
overcome their objections.56
The next day, Price tried to contact William Fiske to see if
indeed Mill Meads and Distillery Island had been excluded from
the Lea Valley Development Plan, but was unable to reach him.
He then acosted Woolcott, who evaded the question, explaining
that the details of the proposed Lea Valley Regional Authority
Bill would not be available until its publication on 4 December. 57
By this time, the press had become aware of the exclusion of the
Fun Palace from the Lea Valley Bill, and the Weekend Telegraph
approached Price who would neither confirm nor deny the story.
With the apparent exclusion of the Fun Palace, and with both
Mill Meads and Distillery Island apparently out of the Lea Valley
Development Plan, Price had little to lose and decided once again
to dig in his heels. He wrote to Woolcott and the Civic Trust,
reiterating his original position that Mill Meads was the only
acceptable site for the Fun Palace.58
On several occasions, Littlewood flew back from Tunisia
to London to deal with the Fun Palace crisis. On one of these
trips in December 1965, she and the rest of the team received
a devastating letter from the GLC. North and Woolcott had
apparently persuaded the GLC that the "The Pilot [sic] Fun Palace
proj ect at Mill Meads" was not in the best interests of the borough
of Newham, since it would:

Attract a large number of people from a wide area. The

site was remote from public transport, access by public
highway would be inadequate, and improvement to the road
pattern would have no priority. Remedial measures would be
impractical and unjustified in view of the temporary nature
of the projects and the prior claims of other improvements.59

The new storm water tanks, for which there was no other
practical location, was favoured, whereas the Fun Palace was "not
tied to the site or the locality".60 The GLC engineers had estimated
the cost of relocating the tanks at three and a half million pounds.
Price's bluff was called yet again, and the GLC letter concluded that
he had refused their generous offer of Distillery Island.
The GLC engineers' figures and estimates were confirmed by
an independent civil engineer, who wrote to Price to reiterate
that, given water flow and topography, Mill Meads was indeed the
best possible location for a storm water treatment plant. The GLC

162 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1 1 1 1 � 1 1 1 1 1m•s, he concluded, had a strong case. A few days later, the
1 I I ,1 ! w 1 ·ote again to amend their estimate for relocating the storm
W l ll.1 1 1 • t,reatment facility from Mill Meads to another site from
t I 1 1 ·1 1 1 1 nnd a half million pounds to nearly six million pounds. They
I 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 111de their point. Price was taken aback by the devastating
1 1 11 w 1 1 , 11nd immediately responded that he was entirely prepared
I ' ' 1 1 1 1 1 wlder Distillery Island. He also clarified the misapprehension
t . l 1 1 1.I. [Link] proposed Fun Palace for the site was only a Pilot Project,
11 1 1 1 I < l oolared that it had always been the main project.
I 1 1 December, Littlewood wrote to Price to bring him up to date
1 1 1 1 I 1< 1 1 • meeting with Lou Sherman. He had confided that the Fun
I 'lllnno had "had it as far as Mill Meads goes",61 and warned that
t . l 1 r1.v would have to garner widespread support as fast as possible.
1 1 1 · t l l0 Pg and Mikardo were fine, but they were not enough-they
w 1 n 1 I< l need a real cross section of society. Sherman was frank
w l l. 1 1 Littlewood:

You've sold it to one section very well-but you need to come

down to the level of the people who really count. You've got
to make the maximum stir and ferment. If you'd done this
nnd succeeded in winning local support we could have got
Mill Meads from the GLC and stopped the engineers building
those storm tanks. As it is there's been a local revulsion to the
l•'P idea . . . . You need a camp round you NOW. Who's going to
complain to the GLC because you haven't got Mill Meads?
No-one. No-one's going to fight for you.
Get your local people back, your commandos then perhaps
In a year they'll say we have to do something about this JL
Idea. We should have been able to demolish that public health
man at the GLC and the outrageous opposition of the planning
members. They are in fact opposed to compulsory acquisition.
We had in fact to give you up-half a dozen more authorities
taking this stand and we're sunk. For some of them are
opposed in principle to the whole Lea Valley scheme.62

1 1 1 11 1 1 · man's advice was sharp and to the point, but may have been
1.1 11 1 late. Despite initial successes, Price and Littlewood had failed
1.1 1 f);nrner sustained grass-roots support for the Fun Palace, and now
l .l u 1 project was against the wall. The Ministry of Housing and Local
< 1 1 1vernment had scheduled the appeal for 4 January 1966, but the
1!'1 1 1 1 Palace solicitor, Robin Hope, had arranged a postponement
1 1 1 1 1. 1 1 22 March. This would give Price and Littlewood more time
'" 1 nt,udy the GLC's rejection and prepare a rebuttal. Continued
11.1 >peals and attempts to amend the Lea Valley Bill in order to
1 1 1 1 1 I ude the Fun Palace meant further delays on the overall bill,
1 1. 1 1 d its possible ultimate rejection.
I n light of the threat to the Lea Valley Bill, the Fun Palace team
I ind a serious decision to make. Was it worth risking the entire
I ,rnJ. Valley Park while the Fun Palace appeals went forward? What
11lfoct might their appeal have on the success of the entire Lea

The End of the Fun Palace 163

 Valley scheme? It had already become clear that a contentious
relationship had developed between the GLC Engineers and the
Lea Valley Development authority.
Price and Littlewood became concerned that the continued
turmoil over the Mill Meads Fun Palace would only strain
relations further, and jeopardise parliamentary passage of the
Lea Valley Bill. In February 1966, Hope suggested to Price that it
was not worth the gamble, and that they withdraw their appeal
for the good of the Lea Valley Bill as a whole. Reluctantly, Price
and Littlewood agreed to withdraw as gracefully as possible and
in March 1966, Hope wrote to the Ministry of Housing and Local
Government to withdraw the Fun Palace's [Link] following
day, the Fun Palace Charitable Trust issued a press release
explaining the withdrawal of their appeal (see Appendix F) .
To all intents and purposes, that was the end of the Fun Palace.
The Lea Valley was not an option. Tom Driberg approached R H S
Crossman, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, to ask
about other possible sites for the Fun Palace, including the old
Alexandra Palace, the 'White Elephant of Muswell Hill', but the
enquiry was fruitless.
Littlewood returned to Tunisia yet again, where her efforts
met with more appreciation. There she read in the English
newspapers about the demise of the Fun Palace. The Evening
Standard published what amounted to an obituary for the
project. The article carried a photo of Littlewood with the caption
"London's Palace of Fun has nowhere to go" :

London's hopes for a Fun Palace have become exceedingly

slim. Plans for this new type of mobile, temporary centre
have progressed well . . . but now Joan Littlewood' s scheme
has nowhere to go.
A site was earmarked in the proposed Lea Valley
regional park at Mill Meads, Stratford East. It is owned
by the GLC, who were quite helpful. Now, however, its
own engineers want part of it for future extensions to the
Northern Outfall sewage works . . . .
What exactly went wrong? Mr Cedric Price, the
architect, first applied for planning permission to West
Ham in the autumn of 1964. Nothing happe ned. With the
changeover of Local Government last April it was passed
to the GLC, who decided it was none of their business and it
went back to the new borough of Newham.
They wanted to be sure that it really came within their
aegis. And did it hold more than two and half thousand
people? Was it a sports stadium? The trouble was that the
Fun Palace was new and it did not really fit the rule book.
In the end, the project was passed back to the GLC who
asked for an extension of time. However, just about then, the
engineers did their calc ulations and realised they wanted
about half the site for storm water tanks. Presumably, it

164 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 would have been very expensive for them to look elsewhere.
I l owever, the Fun Palace could not be shrunk to fit the
1 ·omaining land.
A public inquiry was fixed, but now the trustees have
d ecided to give way. . . . Mr Price said today, "I don't think we
nan go through this charade again."63

M 1 1 1 1 1 I iors of the various Fun Palace corrnnittees exchanged

1 1 11 1 1 1 10Panda, analysing and speculating on the reasons for the demise
' 1 f I.I 1c 1 project. The first of these postmortems circulated in March

1 1 11 H I , probably by John Clark of the Fun Palace Ideas Corrnnittee,

w 1 1 J 1 n detailed "assessment of the Fun Palace project".64 Clark began
I •y 1 1olnting out the difficulties arising "from the basic nature of the
1 1 ' 1 1 1 1 1 'alace" .65 First, there was little connection between municipal
1 1 p1 1 1 ic l lng in the arts and personal social needs of the population.
M 1 1.1 i.v. he explained, would say it was not needed, since they already
I 1 iu I pubs, television, parks, and so forth. This, argued Clark, was
1 o 1 1 1 11 l ness to the scale of the problem ofleisure in present day Britain.
' l ' l l e dilemma was that, despite the Fun Palace's insistence on
1 1 1 1c 1 1 · delight, its infinite possibility and flexibility were inherently
1 1 1 1 c l111lned and it presented no tangible reality to the uninitiated. For
c � 1 1 1 . 1 · k this was both the promise and the threat of the Fun Palace:

" 1 1 . 1 1 1 historically called into being because of the needs for tools and
1.1 ic i l 1 11 tques with which we can adjust to change and its enemy is the
1 1 1 1 1. 1 · of change that arises from the same social situation."66
' l ' l l e British, Clark continued, face more complex and rapid
' > I 1 1 1.11�e than at any other time in their history. He asserted that
1 1 i i l owing the war:

People are often bewildered by choice, which can create

more anxiety, apathy, fear. On the other hand, the Culture
lndustry and mass marketing, backed by economic interests,
present clear and non-threatening choices.87

f\ 1 1 o th er issue that Clark felt undermined unorthodox solutions to

1.1 1 1 1 I ncreases in leisure was the puritanical 'utilitarian work ethic'
1 1 1 I I Pltain. The Fun Palace made few claims-stressing only the
1 11 1 1 1 I t;lve values of its plans and potential to enable the individual
1.1 1 I I n d enj oyment by using time instead of filling it with empty
1 I I vorsions. Herein was a fundamental problem:

At the moment the Fun Palace appears to tower like some

isolated island of guilty pleasure. It naturally offends the
puritan ethics it is dedicated to transform and yet its only
chance of establishment lies in the extent to which it can
relate its plans to a puritan set of values.68

1 ! l rtrk
felt that this problem had become apparent from the
I ic >r1tllity
the Fun Palace Pilot Project had received at the Clarence
Wn..v Tenants' meeting in Camden Town.

The End of the Fun Palace 165

 From the point of view of local authorities, he argued that the
Fun Palace presented another set of problems:

The Fun Palace presents an enormous challenge . Spend

your money on cultural pursuits and on a form that
outdates your total philosophy. You want to spend money
to find out how to spend money? What madness is this?
Better build an Art Gallery instead.69

The problem was bigger than the Fun Palace:

The problems that caused [a Fun Palace theory] to be

posited cannot be left for the Fun Palace to solve. They are
the problems inherent in the society we live and work in.
The social situation gives the Fun Palace its validity
and we exist inside that social situation. It must be our
constant concern.70

Clark's analysis was by far the most insightful as to why the Fun
Palace had failed. Littlewood followed suit with her own account
of the ill-fated Fun Palace:

IN THE NAME OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON, Mr Woolcott,

appointed by the GLC to administer the Lea Valley Project,
parks his black thumb print on Price's design and a sewage
plant replaces a Pleasance at Mill Meads on the Muddy
bank of the river Lea. A major political campaign would be
needed to revoke this decision.
TRAD-HAUNT OF EASTENDERS WILL BE OBLITERATED
Allotment holders, loving couples, rat hunters, ideas kids
will have to find somewhere else to play. M Mead old 'lung'
for Stratford. Fun Palace was invited to incorporate design
in Lea Valley project. The Fun Palace said to be dangerous,
impractical, costly, unmanaged, unmanageable, ahead of its
time, immoral, old hat, half-cocked, has now no site . . . . Fun
Palace WILL NOT SEE THE LIGHT IN LEA VALLEY
Could the idea of a playground be packaged for touring,
nationally and internationally? Is it worth it? The need for
a flexible and marvellous design created the Fun Palace
project. One is tired of Old and New slums and circus tents.
Could theatre royal be demolished and balloons go up on
1/2 an acre of rubble?
Ideas appear to be windborn when broken up. The bits
sprout in the most unlikely places, the practical people,
bespoke tailors, copyists, have found the 'late' idea-cut
out all the discords, grace notes, inter-spaces-colours at
ends of spectra and unne cessary detail. There will be 1,000
bright answers, a few dull ones. Why do they choose the
latter?71

166 The Architecture of Cedric Price

w 1 1 . 1 1 [Link], Littlewood retlll'ned to Africa where she could
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 plish some of her goals at the Harrrmamet actors' workshop.
1\ 1 . l 1 11 w t in Tunisia, she enjoyed official support.
I 1.1 1 molll's abounded in London that Littlewood had fled to
11 1'1'11 111. to escape the whole Fun Palace debacle, and that she had
n l 111. 1 1 c l oned the idea for good. Driberg asked Price if it was true that
1 1 1 1 1 1 was not coming back. The Fun Palace Trustees took it upon
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1ielves to squelch the gossip in a letter to The Times' editor:

It is not correct, as stated by your Special Correspondent in

'I'unis, that Miss Joan Littlewood has abandoned her project
tor a 'Fllil Palace' in or near London. Certain sites have
Ileen rejected, for sollild reasons, but the project is going
forward; and Miss Littlewood (who is temporarily engaged
on similar projects in Tunisia and Paris) expects to return to
England to promote it. This imaginative idea may come into
being in London, in Liverpool, in Scotland, and elsewhere in
Britain, as well as overseas. Its realisation is not tied to any
particular site.72

I11 May 1966, the stalled Lea Valley Bill began moving once
' 1 11.1 1. l n
through the machinery of government. Woolcott had been
1 [Link] general manager of the project. If the local authorities
w 1 1 1 •e indeed so positive about the Fun Palace in their area, they
I 1 1 u I managed to conceal their enthusiasm from Littlewood and
I ' r ·lc:e. Lou Sherman was a friend of the cause, but that was clearly
1 1 1 1!, enough.
Hherman contacted Price to inform him that the Lea Valley Bill
I i nd its second reading in the House of Commons without mention
1 11' [Link] Fun Palace. Did Littlewood wish to petition the House of
1 ,1 Jl'ds to get it included? He wrote to her to suggest one last option:

The only move you can make now is a petition to the

Lords. You, Tom Driberg and Ian MIB:ardo should convene
a gathering of councillors from Waltham Forest, Hackney,
and Haringey. You need back-up. It's no use bothering about
Newham. You should never have settled there in the first
place; half the collilcillors are members of the Transport and
General Workers Union and the rest are Catholics. What can
you expect?73

'l 'l1e prospect of having to start again was too much for the Fun
I '1Llace team. At such a suggestion, Price's exasperated reply was:
"< lo through that charade again? Folll' years of it. If someone came
n wward with the offer of a piece of land we might be interested,
I i ut they'd have to go down on their bended knees."74 Littlewood too
had grown weary and [Link]'aged by the Sysiphian struggle
lbr the Fun Palace.
The Fun Palace had been a simple enough idea, and although
[Link] experience in London had left a bad taste in her mouth, she

The End of the Fun Palace 167

 "London's Palace of
t6 En::-;ING STAXD.<RD THCRSD.\ Y \1,\HCll J -1�
Fun has nowhere to go"
article from the Evening

LONDON'S PALA CE Standard, 3 March 1 966

OF FUN HAS
NO WHERE TO GO
London's hopes
fun [
pal ace
become exceedingly
] of a
ha\'e J udy H i i i m a n
slim. th� only reRI hopr- n! ge�'. t n �
t he w h o! e Lea V�Jiey µro1c·c·�
uff Lhe iTOUnd.
TM fun palnce had lt.'l ."'UP­
))()r t..ers at t·he GLC. But 1 r Lile
GLC ?.·ere to ftghc. [Link] fun
palace a t an inquiry, other

��t � p��p�l�����·,.\i'�:
r\ver pla�round.
And it might then end u p
drastically emascuaied with a
couple of. pn lhB for cyclists ;rnd
the odd l1c-k of pai n t all loc�
liatr�

Disappointed
However. loca1 residenli;; pra­
[Link] so noi&lybeforf' any-
1..hing happened that i t [Link]
polntless to go ahead. H v.·11s.
after an. [Link] to proyidC'
pleasure, not Mfr up rancour in
the neighbourhood.
s.)te fell tht·ouf'!"h

�ouf�clibea if'b!ft:S ��nt�bl��

Another
because the [Link].&. Vii·hose
building plaM Qre. I n abcYAnre.
!eared tlta.t the proJr<t mt�lll
oczres whim th.a tln'il!' cmm;i. tc.

168 The Architecture of Cedric Price

w 1 u1 still committed to the project. In autumn 1966, she finally
1 ·1 [Link] from Africa and subsequently wrote to Lord Harewood
1 1,l lout her experiences there:

Having recently completed a social experiment in Tunisia

which made successful use of several of the original ideas
behind the Fun Palace, I think the project can be revived
here cut to suit our poverty, that is as a travelling circus in
a collection of inflatable structures, erected on traditional
fairground or circus sites. Exhibitions, demonstrations,
classes, do it yourself theatre, cinema and design could
function even if only for a limited period.
If the 'playground' were to arrive in a town at the same
time as an event such as the British Association of the
Advancement of Science or a political circus for example,
items of general interest and entertainment could be relayed,
clowned or translated for the local citizens.
A detailed programme is being prepared at the moment so
that you can judge the value of this modification for yourself
as I hope to keep your interest in the problem.75

I 11 December 1966, parliament passed the Lee Valley Bill , minus

[Link] Fun Palace. The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority was
ostablished on 1 January 1 9 6 7, and today, the Lee Valley Regional
Park includes Distill ery Island (Three Mills) as well as a good
portion of Mill Meads. There are no buildings on the Hawley Road
Hite in Camden Town, and a meagre park with a few bushes and
tienches now occupies Glengall Wharf on the Isle of Dogs.
A few years before her death in 2002, Joan Littlewood wrote to
me: "The FP was always my idea of "THEATRE"-but our politicians
are not given to such notions and the land which should have been
our site IS STILL VACANT. "75 Nearly four decades later, there are
no storm water tanks at Mill Meads. The site is still vacant, save
for a few playing fields. In 2005, it was announced that the area
would be part of the proposed 2012 London Olympics. The Olympic
Aquatic Centre will be built at the old Fun Palace site at Mill Meads.

The End of the Fun Palace 169

T he F un Palace:
What Went Wrong?
 What went wrong? Certainly, the Fun Palace was plagued by
the lack of funding. Despite overtures to corporations, wealthy
individuals, foundations, and the government, the project never
developed a solid financial footing. Yet, the largest single obstacle
to the success of the Fun Palace was the change in London
government, from the centralised London County Council to the
diffused power structure of the Greater London Council. This
shifted decision-making on matters affecting the Fun Palace
from relatively enlightened upper-level officials to uninterested
and sceptical mid-level managers who ultimately thwarted the
project. Bureaucratic control of any political stripe over visionary
projects such as this one is always problematic. Raymond Williams
summarises the dilemma this way:

What is the alternative to capitalism? Socialism. What is

a socialist culture? State control. There are many good
liberals, and many anxious socialists, who draw back if this
is the prospect. Better even the speculators , they say, than
the inevitable horde of bureaucrats, official bodies, and quite
possibly censorship.1

The obvious political question arises, if the Fun Palace was indeed
a realisation of many of Labour's social, educational, and leisure
policies, why didn't politicians and government ministers of the
Labour government intercede on its behalf ? Why, when Harold
Wilson's Labour Party (which had long championed the 'new
leisure') replaced Macmillan and the Conservatives in 1964, did
the Fun Palace's fortunes really begin to dwindle?
Confronted with this question, Labour MP Tony Benn explained:

Of course, Labour would have been behind it, but they'd

only just come into power at the time, and the Fun Palace
would not have been a big issue. There was too much else
going on to mount the sort of political move from politicians
required to bring it off. It's no wonder the bureaucrats did
it in-they'll always follow the path of least resistance, and
without active support from higher up, they wouldn't go
out on a limb themselves for something out of the ordinary
like the Fun Palace.2

The Fun Palace also ceased to be an issue for Labour with the
rise of the Open University. Many government officials, such
as Jennie Lee, who might have supported the Fun Palace, had
become preoccupied with the Open University, and considered the
educational advances offered by the Fun Palace to be equally (or
better) realised in the former project. Moreover, in 1967, at least
two Fun Palace consultants, Asa Briggs (vice chancellor of the
University of Cambridge) , and Lord Ritchie Calder, abandoned the
proj ect (by which time its fortunes had dwindled) and joined the
Open University Planning Committee.

1 72 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 l t was widely assumed that with Labour once again in power,
1 ' l ' l me Minister, Harold Wilson, would reward the party faithful
w l th important government positions. Both Tom Driberg and
I nn Mikardo were members of the earlier Bevanite faction of the
1 ,1.1bour Party, and were obvious choices for ministerial posts.
'l'his, of course, would have ensured that two of the strongest
1 1upporters of the Fun Palace would be well placed in the new
1 ,abour national government and be in a position to help the
project. However neither Driberg nor Mikardo received any
1-1uch appointment. As Benn's analysis suggests, another and
perhaps paramount reason for the project's demise was that it
was just too far out of the ordinary. Price's unorthodox design
and his conscious avoidance of identifiable style or concession to
normative practice undoubtedly baffled many people.
In the initial design phases, Price was often reluctant to fix
upon specific forms and solutions, which by their very nature
might evolve and change. Aesthetics (or the lack thereof) worked
against him, since his graphic style was most often loose and
sketchy, deliberately avoiding specific and concrete imagery in the
interests of not foreclosing on diverse readings. (A comparison
with virtually any Archigrarn drawing also highlights the lack of
aesthetic panache in most of Price's drawings.) On the other hand,
many of his most precise and detailed architectural drawings
were technical in nature, and not necessarily comprehensible
to the lay person. The upshot of this was that the various Fun
Palace projects were not represented by the seductive visual
representations it needed to attract popular support, maj or
funding, and political champions. What Price's drawings lacked in
specificity, was made up for by their evocative quality, at least for
the initiated. This formal quality in itself may have caused some
viewers, particularly those concerned with the specifics, to doubt
the practicability of Price's design.
Like Price, Littlewood was also reluctance to commit to
a precise form and definition for the Fun Palace. They were
both deliberately vague about almost every aspect of this new
indeterminate architecture. It is significant that in the first
maj or publication produced by the Fun Palace, the explanatory
text was introduced by the question: "What is it?" Indeed, just
what was the Fun Palace? It was an event, not a 'thing' . It was,
by its very nature, indefinable in conventional terms. The Fun
Palace was 'Rorschach' architecture, full of possibility, and open
to diverse interpretation by different viewers . The problem was
that the Fun Palace supporters saw the project in glowing terms
while detractors perceptions were largely negative. Thus the
dilemma: how does one communicate the essence of something
indeterminate and indefinite in the resolute and determined
language expected by bureaucratic decision makers interested
only in facts? In his analysis of the failure of the Fun Palace,
John Clark had noted this quandary, remarking that to local
residents, it was a:

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 173

 . . . great black beast [that] lurked around the corner waiting
to enter with change and novelty. The Fun Palace is in this
respect its own worst enemy. Any instrument of change
is dangerous. To be successful it must never be safe and
predictable. Not to be safe and predictable in a utilitarian
society is to be wasteful and frivolous.3

The very choice of the name 'Fun Palace' may have presented
its own set of problems. While the philosophy and reasoning
behind the project were seriously considered and emerged from
an insightful analysis of creative leisure, the word 'fun' connotes
frivolity, and quite possibly trivialised the project in the popular
mind. Littlewood and Price may have fared better had they Fun Palace at night,
opted for a title such as the Palace of Education, or even Besant's c 1 964
Black crayon, felt-tip
Peoples' Palace. 'Fun Palace' was certainly provocative, but pen and white ink
perhaps too much so for its own good. on wove paper
Whatever actual entertainments and diversions the Fun Palace 23.S x 34.6 cm
Image courtesy of
may have offered, its form and activities were subversive and Cedric Price Fonds,
transgressive of the traditional top-down model of culture that was Collection Centre
Canadien d 'Architecture/
already under siege in post-war Britain. Official institutions, like Canadian Centre for
the BBC, took it upon themselves to educate the public by offering Architecture, Montreal

174 The Architecture of Cedric Price

[Link] predigested segments of high culture for their improvement.
'l 'he Fun Palace had no such hierarchical character, since the users
[Link] were consumers and more or less free to determine
I 1ow they experienced it. Even if we consider that the range of
ohoice was to some extent predetermined by the Cybernetics
Hubcornmittee, it was this market driven aspect of the project that
1tllied it with the populist challenge to traditional culture.
The Fun Palace also lacked functional precedent. Its general
!'unction was to provide creative leisure and entertainment; but
oxactly what those might be could not be known in advance.
'!'he Fun Palace was about potential use, rather than dedicated
purpose, and in this sense it was more akin to ad hoc social spaces
iiuch as the street corner than conventional leisure venues such
ns the cinema or bowling alley. The difficulty was in not knowing
I n advance exactly what people might be doing there. If, at base,
the authorities did not really trust the working class, then this
uncertainty was likely to provoke further unease and suspicion.
The Fun Palace might indeed have empowered citizens to
redefine the parameters of their lives, and they may have begun
to question the definition of their own realities . However desirable
this sort of corning-to-consciousness may have been to some people,
It was threatening to those charged with the maintenance of an
orderly society. Whether or not the Fun Palace would actually have
empowered the working classes, the very idea of such a possibility
was inherently ominous.
There were, of course, politicians and aristocrats (Driberg,
Benn, and Princess Margaret) who supported and participated in
projects such as the Fun Palace. Some of this support may have
been initiated by a genuine desire to promote new and diverse
cultural models, but patriarchal benevolence or a desire to 'slum
it' with the lower classes might equally explain the motivation.
In the end, the Fun Palace idea was fundamentally transgressive
of basic cultural institutions and hierarchies, and it was in part
this possibility of transgression that undermined it. The rhetoric
of social control and cybernetic behaviour modification may also
have scared off those on the left who might have supported the Fun
Palace because of its challenge to institutional culture. Unbuilt, it
remains a relic of the spirit of the 1960s, a moment of social and
architectural discontent and expectancy in an era of seemingly
limitless hope and optimism, a time when new modes of existence
seemed within reach. Yet, the unbridled and naive optimism of
the time may also have blinded Price and Littlewood to the more
sinister aspects of cybernetics and systems theories, for the
objectification of people as information quanta entailed serious
political implications.
Price appears to have sensed that the mid-1960s were a narrow
window of opportunity for the British people to grasp a new concept
of work and leisure. If the Fun Palace had blossomed quickly and
not been deterred by bureaucratic delays, real social change might
have been brought about. In retrospect, it is interesting to note that

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrongl 175

 the predictions of a leisure-based society have failed to materialise.
Pundits in the 1960s reasonably supposed that given full and
equitable employment, workers would be able to accomplish their
tasks in less time and enjoy decreased working hours. It is true
that automation had greatly increased work place productivity, but
this did not result in a decrease in work. The 1965 predictions of
a 30 hour work week by the year 2000 did not materialise. Instead
of shorter hours and higher employment numbers, the results were
smaller teams, more overtime, and a substantial increase in the
ranks of the unemployed.
It is ironic that while original motivation for the Fun Palace was
primarily a response to social issues, the architectural legacy of the
project has come to be associated with technology and the High­
Tech aesthetic. The project's gradual shift away from Littlewood's
original social goals and towards technological innovation certainly
prompted many architects to consider it from this vantage point.
Price, however, dismissed this interpretation.
Despite all the setbacks and frustrations, Littlewood did not
entirely relinquish the Fun Palace dream. She did, however, give
up any hope that the project could be realised in England: "They
haven't understood what it's all about in England. Do they really
prefer geranium beds and benches for dogs to piss against?"4
After years of disappointment and rejection, enthusiasm for
construction of the Fun Palace gradually faded. The rejections of
Glengall Wharf, Mill Meads, and Camden Town marked the end of
the Fun Palace itself, but not of the Fun Palace concept. That would
reappear in various incarnations for several more years. The Fun
Palace Chaitable Trust carried on until the early 1970s at a much
reduced scale, funding short-term events in and around London.
Most of the activities sponsored by the Fun Palace Charitable
Trust involved small temporary installations in the vacant lots
surrounding Littlewood's Theatre Royal in Stratford. Urban

Joan Littlewood
clearing rubbish near
the Theatre Royal,
Stratford East, 1 974

176 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1 · 1 1 1 l o velopment was in full swing and old shops, pubs and houses
w 1 1 1 ·0 demolished. By the early 1970s, the Theatre Royal was an
1 11 1.1 1 l u surrounded by empty, rubbish-strewn lots, which Littlewood
I .• 1uk it upon herself to clean up. Soon, the neighbourhood's
1 1 1.r r l l l ies pitched in to help. With local volunteers and little money,
1 , 1 [Link] began cobbling together her own bargain basement
v 1 1 r ·t:iion of the Fun Palace.
I n the spring of 1 9 74, poles, flags, tables, tents, and booths
11. p peared on the vacant lot. Littlewood convinced a local asphalt
1 : 1 1 mpany to donate several paved areas. For several months,

I.I 1 ore was an animal farm. Local children could take horse
r · l d ing lessons. The Who performed a free concert in the area
1 1.1 1 d donated 1 ,000 pounds to the project. For a while, it was
1 11 1. lled the 'Invisible Fun Palace'. In July 1 9 74, Price applied to
I J 1 e Newham local authorities for permission to use a portion of
I . I l e vacant land for a temporary children's playground, and to
I 1 ouse a few prefabricated Portakabins there. Almost a decade
l i a.d passed since the refusal of the Mill Meads Fun Palace, but
l ocal authorities remained intransigent. In September 1 9 74, the
N ewham authorities rej ected the Fun Palace Charitable Trust's
1·(�quest, stating that, although temporary, the proposal conflicted
with the future use of the site.5
Since the Fun Palace had been originally designed with a ten­
.vear life span, in 1 9 76, on the tenth anniversary of the rejection
of the Lea Valley site, Price officially declared the original project
c l ead. He did, however, design several other projects following the
il'un Palace model, notably Oxford Corner House (unrealised) , and
t.l1e Inter-Action Centre, which was built in 1 9 7 7. Oxford Corner
I louse capitalised on the cybernetic and technological aspects of the
I•'un Palace concept, whereas the Inter-Action Centre realised many
of its original participatory and social goals. 5
Even before the Mill Meads Fun Palace rejection, Price was
asked to consult on a potential commercial application of the
principles and ideas of the Fun Palace by the Lyons Tea Company,
famous for their chain of teashops around London. Like many
Londoners, Patrick Salmon, son of the Lyons Ltd chairman, had
followed the progress of the Fun Palace in the newspapers. Salmon
was intrigued by the possibilities of adapting some of its principles
to a new public leisure centre, a cyber-teashop, if you will . The new
facility would be located in Oxford Street Corner House in London
which was owned by the company.
Lyons Ltd's interest in the Fun Palace's potential for
technological diversion was not as far-fetched as it might seem.
In 1951, the president of Lyons Tea Company commissioned
the construction of the first commercial electronic computer in
England. Modelled after Cambridge University's 1949 EDSAC
computer (based on Alan Turing's famous machine) , the Lyons
Electronic Office (LEO) computer was built to solve the problems
of inventory, scheduling, and delivery of teas and cakes to Lyons
tea shops. Based on the success of LEO, Lyons Ltd began to

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 1 77

178 The Architecture of Cedric Price
1 1 1 1 1. 1 1 1 1 lhcture business computers in order to meet the increasing The control panel of
d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.1 1 ti for data processing in the commercial sector. the LEO computer, 1 9 5 1
I 1 1 nn internal memo from September 1965, copied to Price, I mage courtesy of LEO
Computers Society
1 1 1 1.1 1 1 1 0 1 1 explained his idea to his father:

I approached Mr Price to see whether such a scheme could be

l ltted into the Oxford Corner House, and the problems that he
oould see being involved with such a project. He has written
to me saying that within six months, he could produce a
feasibility study, produce design proposals and costing and do
most of the marketing research work, for a sum of £20,000.
He would obviously not do this in vacuo, but would do it in
close cooperation with this Department.
At the present moment, there are no fixed proposals as to
what consists of the Fun Palace at Oxford [corner house] , but
we have considered so far:

Language laboratories
Exhibition hall-with changing displays
Catering facilities
Bowling
Hobby shops
Sports centres (for manufacturers to display and sell
their wares and for the public to learn or participate
in the different sports.)

It is our opinion that as nobody is in such a market in

this country-or for that matter in the world-at present,
not only would we be rendering a social service, but we
would be satisfying a need, at present unknown but
definitely untapped.
I think that there is an enormous potential in catering
for the leisure activities of the populace and that we could
well be setting a new social pattern if we went ahead with
this scheme, as original as the teashops were at the turn
of the century. 7

I n October 1965, Price entered into a contract with Lyons Ltd to

produce a feasibility study for Oxford Corner House.
While the Fun Palace was obviously the initial impetus behind
[Link] project, Oxford Corner House was more focused on cutting­
ndge electronic technologies than the Fun Palace had been. Price
c l eveloped activity and design diagrams not too different to those he

liad produced for the Fun Palace. In his proposal to Lyons, he stated
[Link] the goal was "the establishment of a unique metropolitan
oentre of self-participatory entertainment, information and
l oarning".8 Except for the increased emphasis on both media and
olectronics, the brief was very similar to that for the Fun Palace.
Price wrote his description of the programme for Oxford Corner
I rouse, which was to:

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong? 1 79

 . . . provide facilities, systems, tools and equipment for the
public to involve themselves in self-pace skills , techniques and
information retrieval. The involvement can be passive, active
or both. Visits can be single, regular or intermittent, while all
age groups of any size can use the centre, although several
activities are phased for particular age-group usage during
the 24-hour cycle.9

Like the Fun Palace and so many of Price's other projects, Oxford
Corner House was a deliberate attempt to explore new architectural
and educational territories "unfettered by tradition-scholastic,
economic, academic or class structure".10 However, without
Littlewood's participation, the emphasis of the project was more on
the exploitation of technology than on social improvisation.
The Oxford Corner House project was to fit into an existing
building. Various activities would be located and organised within
the building envelope. Price categorised the activity programme
according to Marshall McLuhan's distinction between 'hot' and
'cold' activities. Following the temperature metaphor coined
by McLuhan in Understanding Media, Price categorised film,
text, and sound as 'hot' media, while television (or even televised
text) was 'cold'.11
Price organised these activities into unit-groups of varying
sizes, from auditoria to small television viewing capsules. He then
experimented with different organising principles and groupings
to find optimum densities and associations between all of the
functions and activities. The organisational patterns for 'cool' media
were organic and curvilinear, while the patterns for 'hot' media
were rectilinear and orthogonal. He produced meticulous studies
exploring the advantages and disadvantages of various layouts of
removable floors, escalators, carrels, viewing rooms, TV monitors,
types of activities, as well as their locations and densities.

Schematic floor plan

of Oxford Corner
House, London, 1 965
Diazotype with blue,
black and red on
plastic film
38 x 69.6 cm
I mage courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d 'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

1 80 T h e Architecture of Cedric Price

 !i'ood service and vending were to be located in the basement, with
1 1 It nmd-circuit television monitors relaying images of other activities
1 1 1 the building. The ground floor was devoted to instantaneous news
1 1.1 1d information of aJl kinds. There were ten television viewing
, ., >oms, each capable of accommodating approximately ten people.
'l'l 1e ground level also featured large display screens, similar to
I [Link] Ascott's Pillar of Information in the Fun Palace. These large
J H 'ojection data screens displayed text and images from a vast digital
1 1 1 formation library, located on the third floor.
'rhere were several types of information supplied to the
r u : reens and displays at Oxford Corner House. By means of
1 1 l osed-circuit television screens, the public could gain access to
mlucational programmes and lectures of various types. Users
would also be able to access transportation routes and timetables,
1 H' wire-service news from the neighbourhood or around the
world. The computer systems inside Oxford Corner House were to
I >e linked via video and data cables to the outside world.
While such highly developed text and graphic data storage
111 easily achievable and affordable today, at the time, these
1 •oquirements would have stretched the very limits of available
1 :omputer technology. Throughout 1966, Price corresponded
1 1 xtensively with IBM to determine the best way to achieve the
k ind of massive data storage he wanted. IBM proposed their
1 1tate of the art system: an IBM 360-30 computer, with a CPU
o lock of about 1 . 3 MHz and 256 kilobytes of memory (massive
lcir the time). Long term data storage and retrieval would be
nccomplished using an array of IBM-2314 magnetic disk units,
while input and output would take place through 16 keyboards
oonnected to four-by-nine-inch black and white video displays. For
I t.s time, Oxford Corner House would have made unprecedented
oomputing power accessible to the public (anticipating today's
oybercafes by 30 years). Lyons Ltd finally decided that the project

Diagram of electronic
communication network,
Oxford Corner House,
London, 1 965
Blue and black felt-tip
pen, black ink, diazotype
on ,.>lastic film
38 x 69.6 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian C entre for
Architecture, Montreal

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrongf 181

 Oxford Corner Hou se,

A
London, human
i nteraction with 'hot'
and 'col d ' media
d i agrams, 1 965
I mage coui·tesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
C o l l e c tion Centre

.<:�: :� : : : : : :0
Canadien d 'Architecture/

{(!)
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

·····. .·······
pro9rammea

c
1 82 The Architecture of Cedric Price
wwi too expensive and chose not to pursue Price's idea for Oxford
< :1 >l'ner House. Like the Fun Palace, it remains another of his
1 1 1 1 l>uilt projects from this era.
Yet, Price did complete one project that retained much of
1.1 1 0 original spirit of the Fun Palace. This was the Inter-Action
< :ontre of 1977. Inter-Action (later known as Interchange) was
1 1. oommunity arts organisation based in Kentish Town, not far
lhim the site of the Camden Town Pilot Project. It was established
1 1 1 1968 by American expatriate, Ed Berman, to fulfil many of the
1 1nme needs and goals outlined for the Fun Palace. Berman was
n lthodes Scholar from Harvard, who studied sociology and social
work in England. After completing his studies, he remained in
[Link] country, where he felt he could best pursue his interests in
,.,;rassroots community activism and youth services.12
In 1973, Berman asked Price to design a multipurpose
oommunity centre for Inter-Action. The new building would
provide services, training, and creative outlets for disadvantaged
r•osidents (particularly young people) in the surrounding
Kentish Town community. The Inter-Action Centre was the
result, built alongside the railway viaduct at Kentish Town Rail
Htation.13 Price's design accommodated workshops, rehearsal
r·ooms, studios, an assembly hall , classrooms, a childcare centre,
oating facilities, and administrative offices.
Although not as radical or as large as the Fun Palace, the Inter­
Action Centre utilised many of the same forms and structural
devices. The centre was essentially an open framework into which
modular elements could be inserted and moved as required by
programmatic changes. The materials and :finishes were simple,
straightforward, and expedient, suggesting conscious avoidance
of aesthetics. In an article which appeared in New Statesman in
1977, Nathan Silver commented:

The aesthetic difference between the Centre Pompidou and

Inter-Action lies in the approach to component parts: Price's
are doggedly artless (Woodwool, hardboard and batten walls,
garage doors, industrial corrugated siding), even where a
little artifice wouldn't matter or cost much-for example, in
the somewhat craftier assemblage of very roughly wrought
paJ>ts, like the iron stairs. The artlessness is deliberate, just
as the colours are definitely phooey colours-neighbourhood
colours-what you see in half-a-dozen flats when the outer
wall goes down, as is happening all around the centre. This is
Price's basic argument. Like Hannes Meyer of the Bauhaus,
who declared in 1928 that building was not art, Price has
sought a value-free architecture.14

Price's design for the project comprised a series of relatively

straightforward diagrams of the various programmatic
functions . Each activity was assigned a generalised shape.
But where conventional architectural practice would seek to

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 183

 '.I (j O
Conceptual sketch of the
I nter-Action Centre, 1 97 6
I mage courtesy of
Eleanor Bron

•
•
•
•
•
•
I •
• •
•
. . . . . ........ .............

1 84 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Diagram of various
community functions,
I n t er A ct i o n Centre,
-

graphite
L o n d o n , c 1 97 7
B l ack i n k, and
screentone
sheet o n wove paper
a d h e s i ve

28. 1 x 60. 1 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d' Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, M o ntreal

come to
1.1' Ooooo

••• �
•
•
• •

I •...
I •
•

•
•
I
•
•
•
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•• • • • ••

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrongl 185

 arrange these in the optimum pattern within a structural grid
or building enclosure, Price categorised each activity space into
a modular size which might be incorporated into the structural
matrix in any number of ways. This helped him visualise how large
the overall structure should be to accommodate the programme,
without actually assigning or dedicating certain portions and areas
to any specific part of it.
The structural system was a vastly scaled-down and simplified
version of the Fun Palace structure . Instead of towers and overhead
cranes, the Inter-Action Centre design consisted of a simple series
of bays made up of steel columns and trusses. The centre's exposed
structure was prosaic, and more or less comprised by off-the-shelf
structural steel components. Even the windows were standard British
Rail coach windows. Price did not attempt to clad or otherwise dress
up the structure. Some of the smaller activities were accommodated
in prefabricated Portakabins, roughly the size of a shipping container.
These modules were plugged into the overall structural system.
The general appearance was of an unfinished steel-framed Diagrammatic section,
building-a DIY Fun Palace. Some portions of the structure were elevations and
filled in with prefabricated panels and appeared complete, while perspectives of cladding
capaci ty, Inter-Action
others were left open and empty. Here and there Portakabin Centre, London, 1 977
modules were parked or plugged into each other. The open Black ink o n wove paper
3 6 x 7 0 cm
areas were used for children's play areas, with a pre-fabricated
Image courtesy of
Scandinavian log cabin at the rear. The adult activities were housed Cedric Price Fonds,
in the central portion of the structure. All materials and methods of Collection Centre
construction were simple, straightforward and, above all, cheap. Canadien d 'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

�-·,..

' ::;
"t-".o f
___. �
..... ,_

186 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Price intended the Inter-Action Centre to be part theatre, part
1 11 nnmune, part school, and part creative-play place. Although
1.1 1 0 building included a non-traditional theatre with no distinct
1 1!.1.1ge or audience space, the bulk of the enclosure was given over
l.1 , unstructured spaces for various educational and creative
1 11immunity-based activities.
The project was a success. In Ed Berman, Price had a single,
pl'lvate client who was highly motivated and had a reasonably
woll-defined and delimited programme in mind. He did not have to
mtlonalise programmatic vagaries and unknowns. The project was
1 [Link] more modest in scope, and faced far fewer bureaucratic hurdles.
1 1 ls earlier appeals and applications for the main and pilot Fun
I 'alace projects might also have accustomed local authorities to the
ooncept of such a place. The programme and concept of the Inter­
f\.ction Centre were more faithful to Price's and Littlewood's original
p;oaJs for the Fun Palace, while the emphasis on technology and the
Orwellian implications of cybernetic social control were absent.
Although the interactive, socially oriented aspects of the Fun
Palace were what interested Price, Littlewood, and their followers, it
would be the formal aspects of the project that would have the most
l asting impact on architecture. Even while the Fun Palace was still
I n the early phases of design, the young architects in the Archigram
�roup became fascinated with the look of the thing. In their early
projects for plug-in and walking cities, the formal influence-though
not the social and ethical depth-of Price and the Fun Palace is
ovident. Over the years, the explicitly mechanical imagery of the

Western elevation,
Inter-Action Centre,
London, 1 977
Black and red ink, blue
penci l , white gouache on
b ristol board mounted
on cardboard
3.6 x 60.6 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

Eastern elevation,
,
Inter-Action Centre,
London, 1 977
Black and blue ink, white
gouache, graphite on
bristol board mounted
on cardboard
26.2 x 6 1 .5 cm
Image courtesy of
. ..
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, M ontreal

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 187

 Fun Palace structure has come to be regarded as the inspiration
for High-Tech formalism, however, this is more a matter of
reception than of intent. In reality the structural matrix shown
in Price's drawings was to be little more than an armature on
which an extraordinary interactive and cybernetic model of
architecture would be arrayed.
The best known legacy of Price's ideas were realised in Renzo
Piano and Richard Rogers' Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris,
designed and built at approximately the same time as the Inter­
Action Centre. The Fun Palace clearly provided a conceptual
precedent and formal structure for the centre, as Rogers
acknowledged: "It was the spirit of [Price's] work-he was, after
all, very political-rather than the form that was an influence.
And, of course, we all admired the avant-garde director Joan
Littlewood. They were all there in the background to Pompidou."15
Piano and Rogers' original 1971 project statement also bears
strong similarities to the principles underlying the Fun Palace:

It is our belief that buildings should be able to change, not

only in plan but in section and elevation-a framework
which allows people freedom to do their own things, the
The I nter-Action
order, scale and grain coming from a clear understanding
Centre, 1 977
and expression of the process of building; the optimisation I m a g e courtesy
of each individual element, its system of manufacture, of t h e author

188 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 storage, transportation, erection and connection, aJl within
a clearly defined and rationaJ framework. The framework
must allow people to perform freely inside and out, to change
and adapt, in answer to technicaJ and/or client needs, this
free and changing performance becoming an expression of
the architecture of the building-a giant [Link] set rather
than a traditionaJ static transparent or solid dolls house . 16

I 'tano and Rogers tried to symbolicaJly convey the same ideaJs

1 >f freedomand agency expressed in the Fun PaJace, and they
were successful in severaJ regards. The Centre Georges Pompidou
1 1 1edia centre is easily accessible, and its library was the first
nuch facility in France to open to the public . Yet, during the
development of the project, the architects were forced to make
a number of budgetary and programmatic compromises with
p;overnment officiaJs (who well understood the transgressive
potentiaJ of such a place) and the finaJ building differs significantly
f'rom their originaJ concept. As with the Fun PaJace, the users
of the centre (in its originaJ form) would have been able to
oxercise a substantiaJ degree of control over the activities within
[Link] building. What stands, however, is a building in which the
gendarmes would quickly escort out the user who attempted The Inter-Action
Centre, I 977
Lo assume control of the functioning of the building. While the Fun Image courtesy
Palace was aimed primarily at the working class, and seen as an of the author

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 1 89

 arena of active participation, the Centre Georges Pompidou today
is a place for the casual visitor and the culture tourist engaged in
sightseeing or browsing through the exhibits, museum installations,
and bookshops. Any transgressive challenge to social conventions
posed by the Centre Georges Pompidou is purely symbolic and has
been safely incorporated into institutionalised culture.
Certainly, in comparison to the Fun Palace, the Centre Georges
Pompidou is a stronger formal statement of technological innovation,
giving new imagery to notions of leisure and flexibility. In this
sense, it is closer to Archigram's preoccupation with image than
to Price's vision of architecture as social intervention. For all its
formal bravado and original intentions, it is a relatively conventional
building, lacking the uncompromising radicalism of the Fun Palace.
Still, one has to wonder what compromises Littlewood and Price
would have had to make in order to realise their project. How
different would a built Fun Palace have been from their original
conceptions of it?
Renzo Piano and
The Centre Georges Pompidou also bears comparison to Price's
Richard Rogers
Inter-Action Centre. By the 1990s, the Inter-Action Centre was in S o u t h - east facade of
terrible condition (Berman complained that the roof leaked), but the Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, 1 977
was run-down from over use, not from neglect or poor design. I m age courtesy
There was a move afoot in England to have the centre preserved as of t h e author

190 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1L1 1 historic building. (Not surprisingly) Price opposed this, arguing
t.l 111t since it was a short-term facility, it had far outlived its projected
1 1 f'espan and should be demolished. Shortly before his death in 2003,
I '!'ice's wish was granted.
When I visited the centre in 1998, hordes of people of aJl ages, from
t,lte neighbourhood, were swarming over the building. Activities were
[Link] place in various areas. A dance group was rehearsing, children
were learning to read, a volunteer lawyer was helping to explain
[Link] intricacies of the English legal system to immigrants, someone
olse was learning digital imaging, a gay and lesbian neighbourhood
1LBsociation were conducting a meeting, while elsewhere, an amateur
11lnging group was recording their own rap CD. As with the Fun Palace,
p;roups could use prefabricated panel systems to assemble their own
offices, studios, and workshops. When interest in one activity waned,
[Link] space was dismantled and reused by another group. It was a true
oommunity centre, and fostered a viable sense of neighbourhood
Identity in Kentish Town. For all the scepticism generated by the Fun
Palace, it was obvious from the success of the Inter-Action Centre that
[Link] original Fun Palace idea could have worked. Price and Littlewood
may have been right all along.

The Inter-Action Centre

entrance, 1 97 7
Image courtesy
of the author

The Fun Palace: What Went Wrong! 191

T he Potteries
T hinkbelt
 The Fun Palace helped to establish Cedric Price as one of Britain's
brightest and most innovative young architects. Although most of
the early Fun Palace publicity largely focused on Joan Littlewood,
this was because at the outset of the project in 1961, he was
relatively unknown. By the time of the demise of the Fun Palace
project, certain members of the press had begun to refer to him as
"Mr Cedric Price, known for his work on the planned South London
Fun Palace".1 By 1966, through his many meetings and contacts
while working on the Fun Palace, Price had become well-known
and respected within the British architectural avant-garde, and the
powerful elite in both government and society.
Price's experience with the Fun Palace project, and especially his
collaboration with Littlewood and a small army of consultants, also
served to broaden his understanding of the scope of architecture
and what it might accomplish on a larger social scale. His earlier
designs had utilised some of the principles of interchangeability
and indeterminacy that came to characterise the Fun Palace, but
most of these early works, such as the Mostyn Bar or the London
Aviary, were relatively modest in both scope and scale. Moreover,
none had engaged the larger ethical, social, and political issues
he encountered in the Fun Palace. Certainly his close friendship
with Littlewood had done a great deal to expand his already keen
sensitivity to social and political issues. Her lifelong commitment
to theatre as social and political catalyst paralleled Price's own
growing sense of architecture as a social means rather than a
formal, and perhaps even architectural, end in itself. Price had
equally come to share Buckminster Fuller's broad vision of the
architect as world planner and social engineer. Pulitzer Prize
winner, architecture critic Allan Temko, wrote to him: "It always
seemed to me that you had the soundest ideas concerning large­
scale planning of any architect I met in England, and I wonder if
someone has given you a crack at some big problems ."2
Just as the Fun Palace began to face growing opposition in
London, Price found his chance to address some of the biggest
problems facing Britain with his next project, the Potteries
Thinkbelt. Price was, of course, not the only architect at the time
to be thinking big. However, unlike the improbable and impractical
(but intriguing) schemes that Archigram or Nieuwenhuys were
proposing for walking cities or cities in the air, Price's large-scale
proposals were eminently practicable and well within the range of
the possible. Price carefully researched and designed every aspect
of the Potteries Thinkbelt, by far his grandest scheme, and it could
easily have been built had the political will and courage existed to
pursue the project.
Where the Fun Palace was a testing ground for Price's ideas, the
Potteries Thinkbelt marked a maturation of his understanding of
architecture. Here, he fully mobilised his theories of architectural
indeterminacy to address the most critical issues facing Britain at
the time. There are clearly similarities between the two projects,
especially with regard to their incorporation of cybernetically

194 The Architecture of Cedric Price

oontrolled interaction and strong social objectives. Like the Fun
I 111lace, the Potteries Thinkbelt was not an expressive or symbolic
I 111llding, but an interactive device in which the subject could
1 1 ndergo a transformation. In the case of the Fun Palace, this was
nn escape from everyday routine into self-discovery and individual
l\1lfilment. At the Potteries Thinkbelt, the transformation would
l>o more explicitly educational, and aimed at equipping subjects
with specific and practical knowledge. In the same way that
[Link] Fun Palace posed alternatives to institutionalised culture
I n the Welfare State, so the Potteries Thinkbelt challenged
I nstitutionalised education in post-war Britain.
Rooted in the socialist ideologies of the Welfare State, the
1 1rchitecture of the Potteries Thinkbelt suggested visionary
models for housing, education, industry, and architecture for
post-imperial, post-industrial England. The project called for the
oonversion of a vast wasteland of Britain's once-thriving industrial
heartland into a 174 square kilometre High-Tech think-tank.
Price's proposal recuperated derelict industrial sites and railways
u.s the basic infrastructure for a new school where unemployed
British workers could study and practice science and technology,
nubjects largely ignored by the English universities at the time.
Both the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt exhibit Price's
npproach of a responsive, anticipatory architecture, adaptable
Lo the varying needs and desires of the individual and of society.
Price felt that since Britain's future could not be predicted, the
lbrms and programmes of the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt
had to be continuously adaptable, acknowledging change and
I ndeterminacy in a continuously evolving process. The Thinkbelt
was not a building or a monument, but an interactive network.
l�ike the Fun Palace, its design was rooted in the cybernetic and
game theory principles of Norbert Wiener and John van Neumann.
I ts constantly changing form was both controlled by and derived
from emergent computer and information technologies. This
technologically-oriented architecture was Price's alternative to the
New Empiricist emphasis on the picturesque and English tradition,
�md the Independent Group's preoccupation with the ad hoc
Imagery and patterns of everyday culture.
The planning of the Potteries Thinkbelt coincided with Britain's
disastrous 'Brain Drain' era of the 1960s, when lack of technical
oducation and employment opportunities drove thousands of
British scientists and engineers to emigrate to Europe and North
America. Between 1951 and 1965, the need for semi-skille d
and unskilled workers in Britain steadily decreased, while the
demand for skilled technicians rose sharply. 3 However, British
schools and colleges failed to provide adequate technical training
tor new workers and technologists. Despite the promises of
post-war educational reform, higher education in Britain was
still largely associated with prestige, high social class, and the
classics. Pure science and research were privileged over technical
oducation and applied science, even in the more populist 'redbrick'

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 195

 universities that sprang up in the post-war years. British industry
also failed to keep pace with global trends towards automation and
computerisation, and were slow to adopt new technologies. While
the British government poured millions of pounds into efforts to
revive obsolete industries, Price envisioned a wholesale conversion
of England's rusting infrastructure into an industry of technical
education and scientific research focusing on practical applications.
He coined the term 'Thinkbelt' to describe the regional scale of
the project and its educational orientation. Price hoped that the
Potteries Thinkbelt would help to break down the traditional wall
between pure and applied science and technology, lure scientists
and technologists back to Britain, and help to situate the nation at
the forefront of advanced technologies.4
During the development of the project, there was no large cadre
of experts, consultants, and volunteers, as there had been for
the Fun Palace. Price designed the Thinkbelt more or less single­
handedly, although his long-time architectural assistant Stephen
Mullin helped produce the final drawings. However, Price did
refine his ideas for the project by discussion and correspondence
with a number of people. By this time, he had become close friends
with Littlewood, and while she did not collaborate with him on the
Thinkbelt, she did offer advice. Reyner Banham's doctoral advisor,
Nikolaus Pevsner, also made suggestions and comments on the
project proposal.
Post-war Britain faced crises that encompassed national and
global identity, social and class structures, and the future of British
industry and its economy. One of the most urgent debates in Britain
in the early 1960s concerned how to prepare for the new windfall
of leisure time that was expected to affect the working classes.
Assuming a continued commitment to full employment (a fair
assumption given the original aims of the Welfare State), many
experts concluded that increased workplace automation would lead
to shorter working hours and more free time for workers. 5 But they
also realised that automation and new technologies of production
would also require new kinds of worker, better educated and more
flexible than their forerunners of a century earlier.
Ideas about how best to use the new free time specifically for
the purposes of education had provided the primary inspiration
for the Fun Palace. Far from being a carnival of spectacle and
mindless diversion, Littlewood and Price had intended the Fun
Palace to empower and enhance the lives of those most likely to
be disenfranchised and out of work due to the transformations in
the post-war British economy. In the Fun Palace, the word 'fun'
was essentially a trope for new creative and constructive uses of
free time, designed to educate and prepare the average person for
success in the rapidly changing social, economic, and technological
landscapes of Britain. For, although the project emphasised leisure
and recreation, its principle function was to provide self-guided
educational opportunities suited to the needs and abilities of the
individual. As an alternative educational model, the Fun Palace

196 The Architecture of Cedric Price

1 10Hed a significant challenge not only to traditional culture, but
'" 1 the highly regimented and elitist British system of education
1.t 1at had existed for centuries. With the Potteries Thinkbelt,
I '1•lce presented an even more radical and visionary educational
nlternative for the nation.
Britain's problems of unemployment and industrial decline
I n the 1960s were exacerbated by a failure to keep pace with
1 m increasingly competitive and technologically sophisticated
world market. Having won two world wars, Britain was suffering
defeat on the industrial battlefield. The British government had
l l'onically developed a conservatively 'anti-enterprise' culture that
1 1ermeated business and education, and resisted technological
rnodernisation and industrial transformation.6
Between 1 9 51 and 1964, Britain's economy grew two or three
per cent annually-far slower than the rest of the developed world.
During the same period, industrial growth occurred three times
faster in France than in Britain, four times faster in Germany,
nnd ten times faster in Japan, while Britain's share of the world
market was reduced by half.7 Between 1951 and 1965, with the
decrease in semi-skilled and unskilled workers and the demand
fbr skilled technicians rising, British schools and colleges were
nevertheless unable to provide the adequate technical education
t.o train new workers and technologists.
The Labour government of the early post-war years tended to
view technical schools with suspicion and regarded traditional
grammar schools as the preferred means of rapid social
advancement for their working class constituents. Subsequent
Conservative governments emphasised working class education
as an economic ladder towards the middle class, rather than as
a means of training a technical class.8 For those who made it to
grammar school, scientific education tended to focus on pure,
theoretical science, rather than on the industrial applications
of science. Such elitist attitudes continued to impede the
development of technical education in England throughout the
1950s and 60s.
At the same time, higher education was associated with
prestige, high social class, and 'useless' cultural education in the
classics and literature. Technical education in applied science and
engineering on the other hand, remained a far less prestigious
and lower class endeavour, and received little attention. These
lingering attitudes towards education in Britain privileged 'pure
science' over 'technical education'.
Conservative education policies of the 1950s and 60s gave
little priority to scientific, technical, and managerial education.
Although educational authorities acknowledged a correlation
between education and national economic development, they
remained oddly sceptical about the relevance of technical and
scientific education to industrial progress. A dissonance developed
between the mandate of new universities to boost economic
development and any realistic impact on the British economy.

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 197

 In the early 1960s, the Universities Grants Commission also
steered funding away from technical education and towards
traditional liberal arts . When the Nuffield Foundation Science
Teaching Project opened in 1962, it offered curricula in theoretical
and pure science rather than in applied science, technology,
and engineering.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the economic
miracle of the Industrial Revolution in Britain had attracted
scientists and engineers from less developed countries. By the
mid-twentieth century, that trend had reversed. A trickle in
the early 19 50s, the Brain Drain grew to a flood in the early
1960s, drawing off the elite of British science and technology. In
1952, roughly six per cent of new PhD scientists, engineers, and
technologists emigrated, most to the USA. A decade later, this
figure had grown to 17 per cent, and continued to rise over the
following years. In the five years from 1961 to 1966, emigration
of scientists, engineers and technologists nearly doubled from
3,000 to more than 6,000 annually, representing a third of annual
output of scientists, engineers, and technologists. The Committee
appointed to study the problem considered but ultimately rejected
calls for a 'Berlin Wall' to control scientific emigration, because
it was "pointless to restrict outflow when there is no domestic
outlet for skills".9
The gravity of the problem was acknowledged in a 1965
House of Lords debate on education, during which Lord Aberdare
criticised the persistent snobbery of British higher education:

I have a feeling that the universities . . . are still inclined to

give greater importance to the arts than to the sciences, and
to the academic than to the technologicaJ. There still exists
a kind of intellectuaJ snobbery that pays greater respect
to the man who misquotes Horace than the man who can
repair his own car. 10

Price had long shown an interest in education and was directly

involved in the Workers' Education movement in the North
Staffordshire region. He had grown up in the area, and had
followed in the footsteps of his father and his uncle, lecturing
at the Workers' Education College at Barlaston Hall in Stoke­
on-Trent. During the 1960s, Price published no fewer than five
articles on education in Britain, including several on his ambitious
and far-reaching plans for the Potteries Thinkbelt.11
Price argued that the British educational system was designed
to do little more than preserve the status quo, to maintain
traditional class structures and divisions, and to prepare workers
for already existing types of jobs. In 1968, he wrote:

Education is today little more than a method of distorting

the individuaJ's [mind and behaviour] to enable him to
benefit from existing sociaJ and economic patterning. Such

198 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 an activity, benevolently controlled and directed by an elite
can. . . do little more than improve on the range and network
of structures it already has under its control.12

I 1 1 ·lce
pointed out that "industrial and professional education
l 11Ls been aimed at the production of people equipped with skills
1 woviously recognised as necessary by their educators".13 Little
p1 ·ovision was made for the inevitable social or economic changes,
1 1 or had any thought been given to how workers whose jobs had
l locome obsolete might be prepared for future skills and industries
.vot unforeseen.
By the mid-1960s, it had become clear to Price that if Britain
wore to remain competitive in an increasingly technological
world, a complete rethinking of the British system of higher
nducation would be required, and his experiences with the Fun
I 'nlace only served to reinforce this view. Price felt that one of the
111uJor weaknesses of the British university system was:

The lack of awareness of both the correct scale and intensity

at which such education should occur. Present institutions
are both too small and too exclusive. The present context
is in danger of lacking, on the one hand, recognisable
social relevance, and, on the other, the capacity to initiate
progress rather than attempt to catch up with it.14

" Hocial relevance" referred to the changing demography of

l l i 'ltain, "progress" to recent scientific and technological advances.
A 1964 article from The Times Educational Supplement,
on titled "Noddyland Atmosphere?", quoted Price as saying
t.l l o.t British universities were out of touch with current social,
ooonomic and scientific conditions.15 In the same article,
[Link] reporter repeated Price's pleas for an increased role for
[Link] and science in higher education.
Dr Robert L Drew, of the University of Strathclyde, later
vnlidated Price's clear sense of the technological shortcomings
1 if British higher education. As he worked on the Thinkbelt,
I 'Plce corresponded extensively with Drew on the role of science
I Llld technology in higher education. In a 1966 article entitled
" ltegional Development-With or Without Science?" (which Price
1 111refully highlighted and annotated) Drew observed:

The dramatic accumulation of wealth occurred first in

Europe and Western society generally, most largely because
it was a culture favourable to the methods and approach
of science and receptive to the technological manifestations
of scientific knowledge . . . . In spite of this, there is a dawning
recognition that, even within Britain there are also under­
developed regions-indeed whole areas of our national
life and institutions which have not, so far, crossed this
science threshold. 16

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 1 99

 Price shared Drew's valuation of the role of science in higher
education. Like Drew, he felt strongly that advanced education must
be socially emancipated and classless, but must also be anticipatory
of the uncertain needs of the future, not just for easily foreseeable
and predictable conditions. In a 1966 article on the Potteries
Thinkbelt, Price wrote that "further education and re-education must
be viewed as a major industrial undertaking and not as a service run
by gentlemen for the few".17
Price also criticised current trends in British academic
architecture, for similar reasons. In the 1964 article in The Times,
Price concluded that universities should put more emphasis on
applied science and technology, and worry less about physical
monumentality and the architectural symbolism of academia:

It is foolish to use Oxbridge buildings as models for monumental

structures devoted to eating and sleeping. Residence ought to
be part of the responsibility of local authorities. Isolation in
halls of residence is not relevant either to teaching or to social
considerations since students will mix with their friends, not
those they happen to live near. 18

In his 1966 article, "Life Conditioning" (which accompanied the

first publication of his plans for the Potteries Thinkbelt), Price
challenged architects to recognise that their true objective should
not be the creation of monuments symbolising the "image of a city",
but simply the provision of the means of "improvement of the quality
of life".19 Architects, he concluded, are more concerned with creating
monuments for some distant and improbable "posterity" than with
improving people's lives in the here and now, and perhaps for a while
into the future. Price's critiques of education and architecture set the
stage for his plans for the Potteries Thinkbelt in North Staffordshire.
Although Price considered the Potteries Thinkbelt a serious
project, it was initially the casual result of a wager. Price recounted
its peculiar origins, which occurred one day over lunch in 1964:

It was the result of a bet. I used to have lunch with the junior
minister, Lord Kennet, then known as Wayland Young,
[Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local
Government from 1966 to 1970] . We started talking about
universities. He was responsible politically for new universities.
I went on criticising them and complaining about new buildings
in Cambridge, Brighton, and Lancaster.20

In addition to his complaints about recent academic architecture,

Price also repeated his concerns about the entire British higher
education system to Lord Kennet. Finally, as Price explained,
"Kennet got fed up with these criticisms and said, 'Why don't you tell
us what we should do?' That annoyed me so much that I decided to
do something."21 It was this challenge from Lord Kennet to come up
with an alternative system of higher education that motivated Price

200 The Architecture of Cedric Price

to produce his plan for the Thinkbelt. He immediately thought of
the North Staffordshire Potteries as the ideal site for his solution. In
addition to providing badly needed advanced technical education, it
would also:
T h e devasted landscape
. . . take advantage of local unemployment, a stagnant local of the North Staffordshire
housing programme, a redundant rail network, vast areas of Potteries, c 1 963
unused, unstable land, consisting mainly of old coal-working G elatin silver print
I mage courtesy of
and clay pits, and a national need for scientists and engineers.22 Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Price chose the North Staffordshire Potteries as the site for his Canadian Centre for
alternative to British higher education for emotional and practical Architecture, Montreal

The Potteries Thinkbelt 201

 Adderly G reen
C o l l i ery i n its heyday
One of hu ndreds of
coalmin es in North
Stafforshire, i t was
dosed in the 1 960s.
I mage courtesy of
North Stafford s h i re
C h a m b er of Commerce

A n early twentieth
century postcard showing
h u n d reds of coal -fired
bottle k i l n s I n Longton
Image courtesy of
North Stafford s h i re
Chamber of Commerce

202 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 ·�· -� -· . //
� t:
reasons. First, Price's boyhood home was in Stone, only four miles
to the south of his proposed Thinkbelt. Second, he was well aware
.,. -- "
of the dire conditions in North Staffordshire and hoped to give WOOD & SONS ofBURSLEM
1mmething back to his homeland:

This area of North Staffordshire-including the Potteries

and Newcastle-under-Lyme-is economically less prosperous
than the rest of the region. As far as built physical
environment goes, it is a disaster area-largely unchanged
and uncared for since its industrial expansion throughout
the nineteenth century. 23

Price found higher unemployment in the Potteries "than in Advertisement for

Wood & Sons, 1 95 5
Liverpool or Manchester, which were the two big cities on either
side of the Potteries".24 Through his work on the Fun Palace, Price
had established enough political contacts to obtain confidential
government data showing the real extent of unemployment,
population, and industrial productivity in North Staffordshire.
'rhis data showed a 400 per cent increase in unemployment in the
20 years from 1943 to 1963.25
The region had poor soil and was not well suited to agriculture
but had rich deposits of both high-quality coal and clay. The easy
availability of coal plus the ready supply of clay had made North
Staffordshire a natural location for the production of ceramics. Up
to ten tons of coal are required to fire each ton of clay. 26 As early as
the fifteenth century, North Staffordshire was already renowned
for its pottery, fired using the local, high quality 'long-flame' coal.
'I'hus, the area became known as the "Potteries".
For more than 250 years, the North Staffordshire Potteries
were the centre of the English ceramics industry. It was here
that Josiah Wedgwood and Enoch Wood (Price's great-great­
grandfather) established their porcelain 'manufactories' in the
early eighteenth century. By 1900, Stoke-on-Trent boasted more
than 1 ,000 ceramics manufacturers. These included some of the
most famous names in porcelain, such as Crown Staffordshire,
Daulton, Minton, Spade, Wedgwood, and Wood & Sons.
The Potteries also played an important role in the development
of modern transportation technologies. In the eighteenth century,
Josiah Wedgwood constructed a network of canals which made
the transport of materials to and from the Potteries much easier.
In the nineteenth century, the extensive system of canals was
supplanted by railroads. By the end of the nineteenth century,
the landscape of the Potteries was dotted with hundreds of
ceramics factories and foundries using the latest technological
innovations of the day, all connected by an intricate matrix of
railway lines. Beneath the ground, coal mines extended in every
possible direction.
For more than two centuries the collieries and potteries of
North Staffordshire thrived. A 1938 census showed 2,000 kilns
in operation in Stoke-on-Trent alone, 50 per cent of the workforce

The Potteries Thinkbelt 203

 was employed in pottery making, while most of the rest worked in
the coal mines. The prosperity of the North Staffordshire Potteries
was entirely dependent on two related industries: coal and
ceramics, and the link between pits and pots was a strong one.
Like many established industries in England, the coal and
ceramics industries of North Staffordshire came upon hard times
after the Second World War. Britain's industrial infrastructure had
become increasingly obsolete and unable to compete with the more
modern industries in the United States, Europe, and Asia.27 North
Staffordshire was particularly hard hit and the Potteries faced stiff
competition from newer and more efficient ceramics factories in
Germany and Japan.
The easy success of the Potteries also contributed to its own
undoing. For centuries, the local coal mines had provided cheap
fuel for the kilns, but by the early twentieth century, air pollution
had become a major problem. For a while, polluted air was merely
tolerated as part of the landscape and even regarded as a sign of
prosperity. One postcard from the 1930s of a particularly smoky
factory town bears the caption, "The change of air soots me well at
Stoke-on-Trent: sooty skies ! ".28 However, in the post-war years, air
pollution was beginning to be recognised as a serious risk to public
health both within the Potteries and throughout England.
For four days in December of 1952, a thick smog settled over
the city of London. This single deadly 'pea-soup' fog (a mixture
of fog and sulphur dioxide from thousands of coal fires) was
responsible for an estimated 4,000 deaths.29 The ensuing public
outcry prompted the 1956 Clean Air Act, which called for drastic
reductions in the use of coal in favour of cleaner fuels, such
as natural gas from the newly discovered offshore deposits in
Britain's North Sea. While the Clean Air Act helped to alleviate
air pollution in British cities, it also dealt a deathblow to the
North Staffordshire coal mining industry, which in turn had a
devastating effect on the ceramics industries of the Potteries.
As the nation began to switch from coal to gas and electricity,
the North Staffordshire potteries were forced to find alternatives
to coal. In the 1960s, ten of the region's maj or coal mines ceased
operations and left thousands of miners unemployed. The mine
closures continued throughout the 1970s and 80s, with the
last North Staffordshire coal mine at Silverdale shutting down
in late 1998.
As a result of the Clean Air Act, only a few hundred coal-fired
kilns were still permitted to operate within the Potteries. Although
some factories had switched to more expensive gas and electric
kilns, most were forced to close due to rising fuel costs and foreign
competition. Pottery workers were laid off by the thousands and
joined the coal miners in the ranks of the unemployed. The rise
and fall of the North Staffordshire Potteries recapitulates the
trajectory of Britain's industrial fortunes.
When it was all over, centuries of intensive manufacturing had
turned the once-rustic landscape of the Potteries into a blighted

204 The Architecture of Cedric Price

An early twentieth ·. · ·
century postcard .\ TlfR1JS Rvt: \'[Link] OH Tfflt '[Link]�
depicting factories,
potteries and collieries
at Hartshill
Image courtesy of
North Staffordshire
Chamber of Commerce

Advertisement for
natural gas for the
ceramics industry, 1 95 5

GAS . . . in rlic (?( lndustr.r

Although gas was
cleaner, it also proved
more expensive than ser 1 · 1 cc
coal and impractical for
the Potteries.
Image courtesy of
North Staffordshire
Chamber of Commerce

l hc \\ l..., I \lidhrnd' (,J, [Link] m .. inl•in' .1 h•1 hnin1I .. chi...,. ,n 'rr• in• t•U lhl'
U't' nr c;u.. In Ind•�·� �''IM.'t".11\� "hkh 1.. :.n11ll11hh· Ill n•n ..
Uml·r.. "'''111111 . tuirc.l

W E S r !\ I I D I. ,\ '-' D S c; " s H O \ � [)

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 205

 industrial wasteland of ruined factories, rusting machinery, and
aging rail lines. Mining had also despoiled the landscape with
pit-heads and slag heaps, while miles of underground excavation
had begun to produce a serious subsidence problem, in which
abandoned mine shafts would collapse, causing the ground
suddenly to sink several inches. In the most extreme instances,
'sink holes' swallowed unsuspecting people and animals.
Photographs of the area, taken by Price in the early 1 960s,
present a stark and depressing wasteland of decaying factories
and rubbish-strewn lots. These images could easily be mistaken
for the worst depredations caused by German bombs and rockets.
The Labour government finally took note of the plight of the
Potteries and in 1965 commissioned the West Midlands Regional
Study to try to come up with a solution. The final report did
little more than confu>m that the region did indeed have serious
economic, industrial, and educational problems . The study was
widely dismissed as useless-its data incomplete, its findings
superficial and its recommendations too little, too late.30
By the mid-1960s, the great 'machine' of the Potteries-its
factories, work force, rail lines, its patterns and norms of
production-could not adapt to change, and had fallen into ruin;
what remained was a decrepit landscape of a failed utopian dream
of science, reason, and industrial capital. The factories, furnaces,
and coal mines lay in shambles, but two things remained: the
population of thousands of unemployed industrial workers, and
a network of rail lines stretching between now vacant nodes on
an industrial map whose features had been erased. Yet Price felt
that the region still had two important resources. There remained
a vast network of roads, rail lines and factories, all of which were
under-utilised and ripe for renewal. The important resource,
however, was the region's people. Price strongly believed that
obsolete industries in the Potteries could not be revived, and that
therefore unemployed workers needed to learn entirely new skills
for new jobs-many of them generated by emerging post-industrial
technologies. However, he also noted the scarcity of opportunities
for such retraining. Within Britain, the technical colleges,
"particularly Hatfield which wasn't very big, and Manchester,
which was enormous, were all bursting at the seams".31 What little
advanced education there was available in the North Staffordshire
area, such as the small technical college at Keele and the Worker's
Education Association, was insufficient for the huge numbers of
unemployed workers.
Price noted as well that the Keele technical college remained
aloof from the real needs of the Potteries:

The first post-war New University at Keele has shown

the slowest growth of all universities (present student
population approximately 1 ,000) has little contact with
the area and few faculties related to the industrial content
of the area.32

206 The Architecture of Cedric Price

Price underscored the misplaced priorities of the new University
of Keele, noting that:

In a letter to The Guardian, 282 students at Keele very

relevantly protested at the £100,000 chapel erected at the
university when in Stoke-on-Trent 'about 24,000 people
are living in sub-standard housing'. It wasn't as if there was
nowhere for the religious-:rrld
ln ed to go. Yet now a university's
building needs are looked on as something quite separate
from the needs of the community that surrounds it.33

To Price, advanced education needed to be knitted into the social

and economic fabric of the community and the region, not to
remain aloof and cloistered from it.
The Potteries Thinkbelt was not the only major plan in the Site Plan of the Potteries
works for educational reform in Britain at the time. In 1965, Thinkbelt, 1 965
Image courtesy of
Prime Minister Harold Wilson made good on his election promise Cedric Price Fonds,
to establish a nationally organised correspondence school, an Collection Centre
University of the Air, aimed primarily at technological training. Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
In March of that year, he appointed Jennie Lee as head of the Architecture, M ontreal

To Liverpool.

ITTS
PTS= Potteries Thinkbelt
M1nchest•r.fM6}

� H I LL - PTB service roads

JRANSFER AREA
= other roads
- PTB service railways
_...... other r1ilwl'(1

atations -
• PTB Iii public UH
PTB uoe only
9
O
with small siding

[Link]J housing areH

•
o
capsule housing
sprawl ..
e erete
... battery

� housing expansion area

filHII transfer areas

- lecultyare1
llll1lllli faculty/ industry shared 1rea

MAD ELEY
TRANSFER AREA
0 Moles 2 3

To Bitmingliam [Link] (M6) To Srafford, 81rn1ingh3m

The Potteries Thinkbelt 207

 Department of E ducation and Science. Her intention was to turn
the idea of the University of the Air into the Open University, an
achievement which many people compared to the success of her
late husband Aneurin Bevan's National Health Service plan.
The Potteries Thinkbelt and Open University were essentially
competing schemes, appealing to very similar constituencies
and resources. From the outset, this greatly reduced any chance
Price might have had to realise his project. Price was well aware
of the plans for the Open University, and even sought the counsel
of sociologist and social historian Peter Laslett, fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, who was appointed to the Advisory Committee
for the Open University in 1965.
While the Fun Palace always seemed to have defied definition
(a problem which contributed to its eventual demise), the
programme and scope of the Potteries Thinkbelt was much more
clearly defined (although the client was not) . Price envisioned
the project as a "higher education facility" , providing scientific
and technical education for 22,000 students. He coined the term
"Thinkbelt" to describe the regional scale of the project as well as
its educational orientation. He refused to refer to the Thinkbelt
as a university because he disliked the upper class connotations
of the word, complaining that universities were little more than
"medieval castles with power points [electrical outlets] , located in
gentlemanly seclusion".34
In opposition to the traditional practice of segregation of
universities, Price proposed a thorough integration of the
Thinkbelt with local industries (the few that remained functional)
as well as with the community at large. He also sought to break
down the distinctions between practical and theoretical education
and working and living. As he explained: "The PTb [Price's
acronym for the Potteries Thinkbelt] is planned to break down the
isolation and peculiarity associated with further education."35
Price reasoned that the student population would come from
all over the UK because there was a national shortage of technical
universities. He explained that "its size, 20,000 students, is such
that its effect will be national rather than regional".36 Price's goal
was to erase the traditional distinction between classical and
technical education, between pure and applied science, and he was
adamant that the Potteries Thinkbelt would have a deliberate "bias
towards pure and applied science and engineering''.37 Computers
were extremely rare in colleges and universities at the time, but
Price insisted that the Potteries Thinkbelt would "make full use of
technological resources (like computers) now reserved largely for
activities outside the universities".38
The Potteries Thinkbelt was to be more than just a response
to the critical need for advanced technical education in Britain
at the time. Price also sought to establish the North Staffordshire
Potteries as a centre of science and new technologies in the
English Midlands, much as it had been during the first Industrial
Revolution. He envisioned the Thinkbelt as "on a vast scale,

208 The Architecture of Cedric Price

and oriented towards science and technology: a kind of cross
between Berkeley in California and a CAT [College of Advanced
Technology] ".39 Again his goal was national, to help to propel
England to the forefront of technology.
Recognising the rapid changes in science and technology,
and the unpredictability of future architectural and educational
needs, Price refined the concept of variable and indeterminate
architecture that he had developed at the Fun Palace for the
Thinkbelt. Given that post-war Britain was the site of rapidly
"changing educational, philosophical, sociological and political
ideas, as well as . . . economic crises",40 he considered mobility and
flexibility to be essential to the success of the project:

The proposed development is planned to enable advanced

education to be undertaken in conditions taking full
advantage of present day national and individual
mobility. However, it is so designed to prevent its form
and organisation from being restrictive in the future. A
far greater mobility of students between aJl educational
establishments is envisaged. This necessitates calculated
'slack' in the educational spatial capacity so planned.41

As evidence of the need for indeterminacy and flexibility,

Price cited a letter to The Times written by the principal of
Loughborough Training College, who concluded that since,
"education is in such a state of flux-it always is-and it is so
subject to the effects of changing educational, philosophical,
sociological and political ideas, as well as to economic crises that
it is only sensible for the buildings to be adaptable".42
The Thinkbelt, Price promised, would:

. . . replace the existing rigid age and time structuring of

university occupancy with a more elastic system enabling
full participation by part-time and re-education factions. The
pure and applied science and engineering bias of the PTb
involves an emphasis on the large flexible organisation of
faculties with easy links to national networks.43

Price based this laboratory of indeterminate architecture on

the cybernetic models of Norbert Wiener and the still nascent
computer programs of John von Neumann, refining ideas that
he had first developed for the Fun Palace. The programme and
physical configuration of the Thinkbelt were to be entirely fluid
and capable of endless rearrangement and adaptation to future
needs and conditions . Christopher Alexander, who met with
Price in April 1966, was impressed by Price's design process, and
particularly by his application of cybernetic analysis to break
down and organise activities.
In order to ensure maximum flexibility and mobility, Price
utilised the derelict railway network of the vast Potteries district

The Potteries Thinkbelt 209

 as the basic infrastructure for the new technical 'school'. Mobile
classroom, laboratory, and residential modules would be placed
on the revived railway lines and shunted around the region, to be
grouped and assembled as required by current needs, and then
moved and regrouped as those needs changed. Modular housing
and administrative units would be assembled at various fixed
points along the rail lines.
Several other features established the Potteries Thinkbelt as a
revolutionary idea, especially for its time. It marked an alternative
to the conception of architecture as the construction of free
standing buildings to the structuring of society and the economy
at large. While its sheer scale was unprecedented, it avoided
conventional architectural gestures of monumentality. It was
not a 'building', nor even truly a 'campus', but a comprehensive
architectural, educational, industrial, and economic plan covering
an area of more than 174 square kilometres ( 108 square miles).
It was intended to transform not just the space of the Potteries,
but every aspect of the lives lived there as well. One of the most
radical aspects of Price's Thinkbelt was his concept of education
as an industry, not just of industrial education. In his brief for the
project, he wrote, "because advanced education is not regarded
as a major national industry, it is in danger of failing to achieve
both a recognisable social relevance and a capacity to initiate
progress rather than an attempt to catch up with it".44 While
the British government poured millions of pounds into trying to
revive obsolete industries of a bygone industrial age, Price planned
instead the wholesale reclamation of the rusting infrastructure
of England's industrial heartland, and its conversion into a new
'industry' of education, research, and information. He believed
that the entire structure and rationale of British higher education
needed to be reconsidered as a new kind of industry for the post­
industrial epoch. If Britain was to succeed in this new economy,
it must take education seriously as a primary economic activity
rather than as a secondary endeavour, subordinate to industrial
production. Price argued that Britain's economic future would
increasingly depend on intellectual production, technical research,
and continued learning, and that students should be considered
as a new type of worker. As part of his reconception of education
as an industry, Price suggested that students should be properly
funded and that "grants must become salaries".45 Price did not,
however, believe that the 'industrialisation' of education meant
that education should be standardised. There would still be enough
flexibility to accommodate the varying needs of individuals.
Price insisted that since "the major concern is to increase
the capacity of the individual to learn throughout life, then an
entirely different attitude to the conditions (and buildings) under
which such learning can best take place is needed".46 The task, he
argued, would be particularly arduous in a nation like Britain, with
well-established and deeply entrenched educational traditions.
However, Price concluded that there was no alternative: "Learning

2 1 0 The Architecture of Cedl"ic Price

will soon become the major industry of every developing country,
and those countries with established educational systems will
have to restructure most drastically their existing facilities."47
He stated that "just as industrial and commercial automation is
rendering various skills and operations obsolete, new methods
of information storage, retrieval, comparison and computation
enable the content of traditional education to be pruned".48
In his introductory remarks for a 1966 article on the Potteries
Thinkbelt, which appeared in Architectural Design, Robin
Middleton underscored Price's idea of education as industry:

The Potteries Thinkbelt is a seriously considered project

for revitalising that area in North Staffordshire which has
for generations depended for its livelihood and all sense of
community on the manufacture of pottery. This industry
has now become stagnant; the area a wasteland. Cedric
Price's revolutionary proposal is that advanced education­
and in particular advanced technical education-should
become the new prime industry.49

Price also sincerely hoped that the Thinkbelt would induce

commercial development and would act as an economic catalyst.
In addition to retraining workers and providing education for
younger students just entering university, he hoped that his
Thinkbelt would help revive the regional economy and alleviate
the rising unemployment rates. Aside from teachers, the project
would employ thousands of workers in the service and support
industries and would anticipate "hitherto uncharted" areas in
education, technology, and employment.
The vast triangular site defined by the Potteries Thinkbelt
encompassed several factory towns, the largest of these being
Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent. It also included
dozens of ceramics factories, or 'potteries', in addition to the
University of Keele, where he planned new laboratories for applied
physics and chemistry.
He envisioned a close working relation between learning
and manufacturing. Mobile rail-mounted teaching and research
facilities could be shunted to both new and existing manufacturing
plants which were involved in work relevant to the research
at hand. Students would benefit from observing and analysing
traditional modes of manufacture in existing factories, while
new factories could be built to implement the resulting advances
in technology:

Though the effect of the PTb in providing new forms of

employment directly related to the complex will be of
short-term benefit to the community heavily dependent on
two basic, and contracting industries [coal and ceramics],
the long-term value of the PTb will rest on the capacity of
its research facilities to attract new industries to the area

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 2 1 1

 and to reorientate and revitalise existing industries such as
ceramic manufacture.50

Price repeatedly emphasised that in the Thinkbelt:

Interaction between faculties and existing industry will

be, at once, a short-term benefit to both. The links will be of
a temporary, flexible nature . . . . Long-term operational links
with both local and national industry will demand a capacity
on the part of the PTb to build and sustain experimental
plants of the type now confined to very large industries and
state institutions.51

Here again, Price is in agreement with Dr Drew's proposal for

regional centres for scientific study:

Not least, these regional science units must have, as a

deliberate aim, the presentation of the results of their
research, freely and openly, to the people of the region, and
constantly involve them in the discussions, evaluations and
choices about the applications of scientific knowledge and the
alternative technologies and techniques by means of which
their natural resources might be harnessed and developed. 52

Besides provicling a radically new 'industrial' alternative to higher

education, the Thinkbelt also proposed new modes of living. Price
envisioned a new form of community, which rejected traditional
notions of central public gathering. As Robin Middleton explained
in the introduction to an .Arnhi teaturaJ Design article:

Students would live all over the areas. Their dispersal would
mean that they would not live within a self-conscious and
artificial 'student-community' . They would be members of a
whole community, living and working together. Living units,
like teaching units, would be moved whenever necessary;
they would be expandable and, of course, expendable. No one
would be straight-jacketed into a fixed community. 53

Price saw the Thinkbelt as an opportunity for 'hot-house' research

into new living patterns and types of housing. He felt that since
students were particularly hard on housing stock, caring little for
maintenance and upkeep, they would make excellent subjects with
which to test new construction techniques, bulleting types, and
housing designs:

Students couldn't care a damn about maintenance . . . are very

antisocial compared with the householder, because they keep
fUIUl.y hours and they don't appear to do any work. They
have . . . excessive production of noise at the wrong times, no
interest in dustmen or window cleaners or maintaining
their roof. . . . These students could be the guinea pigs for

2 1 2 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 prototypes for a new sort of housing because they required
good sound insulation.54

Price also believed that the three to five year period of student
occupancy closely approximated the probable living patterns of
1m increasingly mobile society of the future.
Far from being cloistered and static, the vast and dispersed
'Phinkbelt region would be constantly in motion. Students and
teaching activities would continually interact, erasing conventional
boundaries between working and living. Price hoped that the
olose integration of the project with the community at large would
further break down the distinction between learning and living,
allowing education to become a normal part of the daily life of
the community:

The system by which the public is self-consciously invited

to participate, on sufferance, in certain activities in existing
universities will not obtain in the PTb, since the flexibility
of learning equipment and methods will allow national
participation by students in fields at present rigidly defined as
secondary or adult [Link]

Price concluded that the Thinkbelt must be "large enough to involve

the whole community and thus to make people realise that further
education is not merely desirable but essential".58 His goal was to
benefit the citizenry at large, not just the student population:

. . . the subsidiary activities of the student population will

enable the community as a whole to benefit from a new and
specialised plant for leisure and recreation. Similarly, the
information and learning facilities provided by the PTb are to
be used by the whole population. 57

A mobile 'portal' crane

used for handling large
shipping containers
This is the type of
crane that Price planned
to use in the Potteries
Thinkbelt Transfer Areas
to move and assemble
the mobile rail modules.
I mage courtesy of Fruehauf

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 2 1 3

 Price added that the project's mobile libraries and information o p p o s i te
Photomontage of the
centres would be: "For all the population, so you could actually
M adeley Transfer Area,
improve the grain of the social infrastructure through the students Potteries Thinkbelt, 1 966
being used as the excuse financially and operationally, to actually I n k on gelatin s i lver print
Note the combination of
build these things, and also to test them."58 medium load boom crane
Besides the existing roads, rail lines, and the few remaining and heavy l i ft gantry
factories, the only semi-permanent elements of the [Link] were crane, designed to
provide maximum
to be the three large 'Transfer Areas'. At these Transfer Areas, fle x i b i l ity i n moving
modular and mobile housing and teaching units could be assembled and asse m b l i ng m o b i l e
l i ving and teaching
and connected by giant overhead cranes typically used in the
modules. To the left
container-based shipping industries. With these exceptions, all are the vast workshop
other elements of the [Link] were modular and mobile, capable sheds with office and
short-term residential
of deployment to any given location, and then easily relocated to towers rising above.
a new site, as required by the continually evolving programme I m age courtesy of
and curriculum. Individual modular units could be combined in Cedric Price Fonds,
C o l l e ct i o n Centre
whatever configuration was required and then shunted off on rails Canad i e n d 'Architecture/
to the proper site. Canad i an Centre for
Architecture, Montreal
The most northern point of the triangular site of the [Link]
was at Pitts Hill, a crossroads just north of Tunstall. The second
point was 13 kilometres (eight miles) to the southwest at the town
of Madeley, not far from the University of Keele, and the third point
of the triangle was at Meir, 19 kilometres ( 1 2 miles) from Madeley
and 16 kilometres (ten miles) from Pitts Hill. These three towns
not only defined the limits of the Thinkbelt, but also served as the
principal Transfer Areas. The rail lines connecting the three areas

S ketched plan and

section of a typical
Transfer Area, Potteries
T h inkbelt, 1 964
Graphite, black and red
i n k , adhesive dots on
wove paper
38 x 50.7 cm
I mage courtesy of
Cedri c Price Fonds,
C o l l ection Centre
Canad i e n d ' Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, M ontreal

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2 1 4 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 Diagrammatic plan

<I
and section of Madeley
Transfer Area, Potteries
Thinkbelt, 1 965
Black ink on wove paper
35 x 88.4 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Arch itecture/
Canadian Centre for
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Madeley Transfer
Area for Potteries
Thi nkbelt, 1 965
Diazotype on wove paper
59.5 x 84.4 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Col lection Centre
Canadien d'Archi tecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

The Potteries Thinkbelt 2 1 5

 were laid out radially, converging near the centre of the Thinkbelt Diagrammatic plan and
at the rail junction at Stoke-on-Trent. The three Transfer Areas sections of Pitts H i l l
Transfer Area, Potteries
were also connected by roads, which roughly follow the three Thi nkbelt, 1 964
sides of the Thinkbelt triangle . While all Transfer Areas permitted Coloured inks on
wove paper
movement and assembly of modular elements within the Thinkbelt 25.5 x 1 9 cm
rail and road systems, they also provided specialised connections Image courtesy of
outward to national highway, rail, and air networks. Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Madeley was the largest of the Transfer Areas. Price designed Canadien d'Architecture/
the area to permit easy linkage between the internal Thinkbelt rail Canadian Centre for
and road systems and the national M6 motorway, and to provide Architecture, M ontreal

"facilities for handling, assembly and construction of large scale

goods and equipment". 59 There were to be two enormous enclosed
workshops where the various types of mobile teaching and living
modules used in the Thinkbelt could be built and maintained. Next
to these huge service bays would be a series of modular offices
and workspaces, similar to those Price would later design for
his 1977 Inter-Action Centre in London. The Madeley Transfer
Area comprised nearly 1,360,000 cubic metres of flexible space,
reserving 46,450 square metres for static functions, such as
storage and mechanical systems. Rising above the Madeley
Transfer Area would be several towers containing more than 9,290
square metres of 'hotel' type accommodation for "short and medium
term visiting staff' .50 The PTb rail system extended a mile beyond
Madeley into an area reserved for future housing expansion.
Price envisioned the Transfer Area at Pitts Hill as a connection
between the PTb and the national British Railways system. Pitts
Hill provided facilities for "rapid and continuous bulk goods and
personnel exchange". These would contain some 8 7 7,822 cubic
metres of flexible space, with just less than 27,870 square metres
of dedicated space for fixed equipment. Pitts Hill was also to be
equipped with a single portal crane as well as two 'travelator'
conveyor belt systems for moving freight and people. There were
to be no living accommodations at Pitts Hill, because of noise from
the main line rail connection.
The Meir Transfer Area linked the Thinkbelt network to an
airfield, "providing facilities for rapid exchange of personnel or
lightweight goods from PTb to national or international networks".61
A third smaller than Pitts Hill, Meir included approximately
566,337 cubic metres of variable, flexible space and 33,445 square
metres for fixed and dedicated uses. Goods and mobile teaching
would be handled by three types of cranes: portal, monorail,
and mobile (road-based) cranes, as well as by forklifts . These
cranes also serviced the 1 , 1 1 5 square metres of single-floor living
accommodations for students and staff, providing easy access
across movable bridges and gantries to mobile rail-based laboratory
units and other portable enclosures.
In addition to the Transfer Areas, there were to be four 'Faculty
Areas' or teaching nodes within the Thinkbelt, located alongside
the rail lines at Silverdale, Hanley, Tunstall/Pitts Hill, and Fenton/
Longton. At these Faculty Areas, mobile rail-mounted teaching

2 1 6 The Architecture of Cedric Price

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218 The Architecture o f Cedric Price

units could be parked in rail sidings. The number, [Link], size, Diagrammatic plan
and length of time that units might be at any of the four locations and sections of Pitts Hiii
Transfer Area, Potteries
would depend on the need for them at any given time. The Fenton/ Thinkbelt, 1 964
Longton Faculty Area was the largest, covering more than 7,432 Black, blue and red i n k
square metres, followed by Tunstall/Pitts Hill with 6,225 square o n wove paper
2 5 x 1 9 cm
metres. The smallest (though still quite substantial) was the 4,924 I mage courtesy of
square metre Faculty Area at Silverdale. Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Price also proposed secondary teaching areas, which he called Canadien d'Architecture/
'Faculty Sidings', at Hanley and Silverdale. At these sites, mobile Canadian Centre for
units could be temporarily stationed adjacent to factories and Architecture, M ontreal
other industrial facilities. These areas permitted the all-important
coordination between industry and the Thinkbelt research and
educational activities. In addition, there were seven small 'mini­
siding' areas at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hanley, Cobridge, Burslem,
Tunstall and Normacott, where mobile self-teaching units and
computerised information storage units could be parked as needed.
Price designed six types of mobile, rail-based units to roam the
rail lines of the Thinkbelt:

1. '[Link]' coaches designed to shuttle students to and

from various points within the Thinkbelt.
2. Seminar units, used either in conjunction with normal
[Link] services, or in separate services with long stops
of scheduled duration at PTb stations, or parked at small
Faculty Sidings, providing random discussion opportunities
or scheduled televised lectures to student areas.
3. Self-teach carrel units used in conjunction with closed
or open circuit TV transmission or linked information
and program storage units.
4. Information, computerised data and equipment
storage units.
5. Fold-out, inflatable units. Once in place, the sides would
flip down, extending the unit to a width of 24 feet,
over which a large dome would inflate. Hydraulic levelling
j acks would then be deployed to level and stabilise the
entire unit . These units provided either two orthodox 30
person lecture areas or one demonstration or television
studio area, linked by cable and wireless transmission to
information and equipment stores .
6. Fold-out decking units. Up to three of these units could be
parked side-by-side on parallel tracks, and connected
into a single 24 foot wide deck or platform. Like the fold-out
inflatable units, these also used hydraulic levelling devices
for stability. They could be used either for 'access to other
units, or as support for specialised or fine-control [controlled
environment] rigid enclosures positioned on units by
mobile crane ' .62

Some of these units, such as the railbuses, were self-propelled,

with scheduled service of class length between stops so that students

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 2 1 9

 Diagrams of typical
could literally learn 'on the move'. Classroom and laboratory Faculty Sid ings,
trains could be linked to form larger units. The largest lecture­ Potteries Thinkbelt, 1 966
Black ink, adhesive
demonstration units spanned three parallel rail lines and came screentone sheet on
equipped with fold-out floor decks and inflatable walls . wove paper
Price's highly detailed drawings for each mobile unit type even 3 2.9 x 8 6 . 2 cm
I mage courtesy of
indicate the size and location of cloakrooms. Price clearly Cedric Price Fonds,
identified mobility as both mechanism and metaphor for the C o llection Centre
changing nature of education within post-industrial society. Canadien d ' Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
While today's networked technologies do not require such Architecture, Montreal
physical mobility, the PTb transport system would have provided
Diagrammatic plans
important links to factories and other fixed sites in the region. of rail based units,
Price outlined 19 different housing areas in the Thinkbelt, Potteries T h inkbelt, 1 966
utilising four basic types: capsule, sprawl, crate, and battery. Black ink, graphite on
wove paper
In all, there were to be 32,000 living units, although this number 3 2 .4 x 87 cm
could be increased in the 'housing expansion areas' reserved for I mage courtesy of
future growth. Like the mobile teaching units in the Thinkbelt, the Cedric Price Fonds,
C o llection Centre
housing units could be moved around and rearranged by cranes Canad iend' Architecture/
and rail as the programme changed over time. Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal
For each of the housing types, Price designed kitchen and
bathroom modules which were carefully detailed in large-scale
drawings. He delineated the mechanical requirements for all

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220 The Architecture of Cedric Price

types of bodily needs, from full immersion baths to showers Typical housing units,
and toilet types. He went so far as to determine the mechanical Potteries Thlnkbelt, 1 96 5
Black ink on wove paper
requirements for each unit, as well as the pipe diameters and 32 x [Link]
required rates of water flow and pressure for entire housing Each unit consists of
four zones:
areas. During the planning of the project, Price met regularly I . A 'dry' area for living
with engineer Frank Newby to develop the structural systems and working (requiring
required for each of the housing areas, as well as for the faculty no mechanical services)
2. A 'wet' area for
and transfer areas. His meticulous drawings indicate details and bathrooms and
methods of assembly, which even today could readily be used to kitchens (requiring
construct the housing units. mechanical services)
3 . Sleeping areas,
The 'capsule' housing type was comprised of small units requiring sound
stacked in staggered linear layers along steeply sloping sites, insulation
4. An exterior envelope
allowing good views. These units could be utilised in sites too permitting various
steep for conventional housing. For each unit in this housing degrees of privacy,
type, Price designed a rectilinear framework into which various acoustic insulation,
views, ventilation
types of panels could be installed. Occupants could choose from and passage
various panel options, depending on their needs for privacy, I mage courtesy of
light, View, ventilation, or access. For example, they had a Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
choice of five types of doors, ranging from solid, to glazed and Canadien d'Architecture/
ventilated. They could also create residences of various sizes, Canadian Centre for
Architecture, M ontreal
since capsule units could be used singly as small, single-bedroom

Capsule housing,
Potteries Thinkbelt, 1 966
Black ink on wove paper
32.4 x 4 4 cm
Located on sloping sites,
Capsule housing units
take advantage of the
topography and views
while permitting privacy
for their users.
I m age courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Archltecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

= = : clear glaz1ng panels wilh loumd p11Yacy conlrol

....__ - translucl'llt panels

w-· �-·ii lramhx:C"nl pantls abovf clear gl.12ing

The Potteries Thinkbelt 221

 units, or combined to form larger family apartments for married
students. Price designated Capsule housing for four locations:
Silverdale, Tunstall, Normacott, and Meir.
'Sprawl' housing consisted of clusters of small units equipped
with hydraulically controlled adjustable legs to permit their
use on any grolllld condition. Price designed two configurations
for the Sprawl llllits: large circular layouts with the focal point
towards the interior of the circle and large 'Y' shaped layouts
which could fit around existing buildings or topography.
The Sprawl units were intended for use in areas with uneven
ground and unpleasant external views. Price thought this type
would be appropriate for nine locations: Silverdale, Etruria,
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Fenton,
Longton, and Normacott.
'Crate' housing somewhat predated a hybrid of Le Corbusier's
1953 Unite d'Habitation and Moshie Safdie's 1967 Montreal
Habitat. These consisted of modular units plugged into a large,
high-rise framework raised on pilotis. The individual housing
units were arranged in staggered layers, permitting excellent
views and were to be used at the perimeter of the Thinkbelt to
help define the edges of the region. Each unit was supplied with
its own plumbing and electrical service. Heating and cooling
however were provided within the overall frame enclosing the
units, eliminating the need for such systems within the individual
living units. The size and weight of Crate housing made them
impractical for use on lllleven or lUlStable grolllld , but Price folUld
suitable locations at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Burslem, Cobridge,
Stoke, Longton, Normacott, and Meir.
'Battery' housing was similar to Crate housing, but was low­
rise and designed for use in the most problematic areas with
uneven grolUld or where the ground was prone to subsidence
and might suddenly sink several inches. Like the Sprawl
units, Battery housing units were equipped with hydraulically
controlled adjustable legs to permit their use on any ground
condition. Battery housing was horizontally expansive,
incorporating large, open-air promenades, and the possibility of
rooftop parking in some variants. Price planned to use Battery
housing in nine locations at Newcastle-lUlder-Lyme, Burslem,
Cobridge, Hanley, Stoke, Longton, and Normacott.
Price was quite serious about the practicalities of actually
building the Thinkbelt. He met repeatedly with British Rail
officials to discuss weight and size limitations in order to
determine the maximum sizes of the Thinkbelt's rail-based mobile
units. Price also sought the advice of engineer Frank Newby, as
well as mechanical and electrical engineers, quantity surveyors
to estimate construction and equipment costs, and even catering
consultants to determine how to feed the population.63 Price
estimated that work could begin within nine months and that
the Thinkbelt could be operational within two years, although
final completion would take five years. He calculated that the

222 The Architecture of Cedric Price

Thinkbelt would cost an estimated 80 to 90 million pounds.
Price also compiled the detailed environmental data on the
Potteries which was needed to make the Thinkbelt a practical
reality. In March 1965, Price wrote to the National Coal Board
requesting data on ground subsidence rates in the Potteries.
With this data in hand, Price was able to work with Newby to
design structures which could withstand sudden changes in
ground level. Price also produced charts of the short-term and
long-term use and life cycles for each of the Thinkbelt elements.
These diagrams indicated the probable duration that any given
unit would be used in a specific location, while also projecting the
useful life of the unit before it would be dismantled and recycled.
Although Price had carefully considered every possible aspect
of the project, the Thinkbelt was still uncharted territory, filled
with unknowns and uncertainties.

Cut-away axonometric
·--­ view of crate housing,
Potteries Th inkbelt, 1 966
-
-. - · - -
Black i n k on wove paper
...:
i :_- 32.4 x 87.4 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Archltecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

Diagrammatic elevations
and plans of battery
-
housi ng, Potteries
... Thinkbelt, 1 966
... Black ink on wove paper
34.2 x 44.S cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
-
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, Montreal

i
� B

� ...
13

P°§
8

..... !;!
=-.
...""
.
8 � -
§
8 8
B
8
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.... .... ...... .....
§ �
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The Potteries Thlnkbelt 223

 In the Fun PaJace he had proposed using two enormous
travelling gantry cranes to move modular building elements
around the overaJl structure. Almost a decade later at the Inter­
Action Centre, Price would utilise ready-made modular containers
to create plug-in spaces for offices and restroom facilities. For
the Thinkbelt, he proposed large portaJ cranes to transfer
prefabricated dwelling and teaching units from tractor trailers to
rail-based flat cars. He had become interested in the technologies
involved in handling modular materials, especiaJly the use of
gigantic cranes to move large prefabricated shipping containers Chart of l i fe span
to and from trucks, trains, and ocean-going ships. In February and u s e cycle,
Potteries T h i n kbelt, 1 966
1965, he met with engineers and technicians from the Fruehauf
D iazotype with
Crane and Container Company, to discuss the feasibility of using graphite i n scriptions
such materiaJ-handling technologies in the Thinkbelt. Clearly, o n wove paper
60 x 84.5 cm
Price wanted to do more than just think about the Thinkbelt: he I mage courtesy of
wanted to build it. Cedric Price Fonds,

In 1967, Reyner Banham praised Price's application of these Collection Centre

Canadien d'Architecture/
new modular-shipping technologies in the Potteries Thinkbelt as Canadian Centre for
an example of the 'container revolution' . In an article entitled Archi tecture, M ontreal

f I . .,....

I-

II III
I
, I I

I '
i
'
00

224 The Architecture of Cedric Price

"Flatscape with Containers" in New Society Banham considered
the implications of the new technologies of 'containerised'
shipping. 64 Banham observed that materials were now shipped in
sealed, weather-tight containers, and that warehouses were no
longer required to shelter the goods in transit. Banham believed
that this had important implications for architecture, and
eliminated the need for permanent 'buildings' in favour of flexible
and movable modular construction. He enthusiastically described
buildings at the new container shipping ports:

. . . roofed volumes with side enclosures . . . [which] . .. seem to

grow naturally as light shells unencumbered by massive
masonry or cultural pretensions. In a portscape where
corrugated asbestos and ribbed aluminium sheet are not
cheap substitutes but the very stuff of building, a brick
looks as pompous as rusticated masonry does elsewhere
(the passenger hall at Tilbury [one of the largest container
shipping ports] , with its coats of arms and barrel vaults,
would look pompous anywhere, and attains a positively
nightmarish quality there). And these shed shells, stiff tents
almost, can be perfectly adequately designed by engineers
without any interference from architects, and usually are. 6 5

Despite his enthusiasm for the architectural potential presented

by the modular units and cranes of the new shipping methods,
Banham doubted that architects, even the renegades of Archigram,
could effectively utilise these new technologies. However, he
mentioned one exception: "The only architect who might, in fact,
is Cedric Price, who applied container technology near enough to
university teaching in his Thinkbelt project."66
Price was adamant that the Thinkbelt could and would be
realised, if he could just garner enough support for it. He was
determined not to make the same mistakes as had been made
with the ill-fated Fun Palace, for, by this time (early 1966), Price
was coming to grips with the fact that the Fun Palace project was
doomed. When the opportunity to develop the Potteries Thinkbelt
came along in 1964, Price's spirits lifted considerably, since he
was confident that the Thinkbelt would not encounter the kind
of bureaucratic and political resistance that the Fun Palace had.
It was perhaps understandable that the British government
might dismiss a leisure 'palace' devoted to 'fun ' and frivolity, but
surely, given the dire conditions of British technical education and
industry, the Thinkbelt would be a welcome solution to the crisis.
Through the Fun Palace experience, Price had become much
more media-savvy, and began to publicise his Potteries Thinkbelt
proposal, even before its completion in early 1966. In late 1965, he
had already written to J M Richards, editor of The Architectural
Review, about the project. Richards was interested, but would not
be able to publish it until August 1966. Price felt that time was of
the essence (because of the competing Open University) , and that to

The Potteries Thinkbelt 225

 delay publication more than six months would greatly reduce the
effectiveness of his Thinkbelt proposal. In January 1966, he wrote
to Richards to decline publication in The Architectural Review.
Price completed the Potteries Thinkbelt proposal in February
1966. The newspapers began to take notice almost immediately.
On 10 April 1966, The Sunday Times published "A Sidings Think­
belt for 20,000 Students", praising Price's Thinkbelt as "the latest,
and surely the most original, response to the country's need for
more higher education" .67
The article called it an "academic nirvana, planned to the last
piece of railway rolling-stock", and went on to say that:

Laboratories for the mere simulation of scientific truth

would be out. Real factories, producing real contributions
to the white-hot technological revolution, would be in . . . .
The Belt would take seven years to construct, and cost
about 80 million . . . . Mobility and impermanence would be
the motto.66

The following day, The Daily Mail published an article on the

Thinkbelt entitled "Seats of Learning in Rail Coaches":

The report is the result of two years' research in the Stoke­

on-Trent area by a 31 -year-old architect with a contempt for
traditional and new universities . Mr Cedric Price, known
for his work on the planned South London Fun Palace said
yesterday at his London office: 'Universities today are like
something out of Noddyland. They are Greek monasteries
with a tired country club atmosphere . I started the research
as a technical exercise and because I thought such a scheme
was necessary.' Students would use existing and modified
facilities in railway sidings . There would be mobile lecture
rooms in specially designed railway coaches, which could
be shunted to factories for practical study of day-to-day
methods. The scheme would cost about 80 million, and take
seven years to become fully operational. 'New universities
are basically the same medieval piles', said Mr Price. 'It is
time we tried something else.'69

Price compiled a distribution list for the final Thinkbelt proposal

which included Lord Kennet who, after Labour won the
1964 elections, was appointed junior minister at the Ministry
of Housing and Local Government. He also sent copies to
Christopher Alexander, Stanford Anderson, Reyner Banham,
Alvin Boyarski, Buckminster Fuller, Royston Landau, Peter
Laslett, Joan Littlewood, Frank Newby, Nicholas Pevsner,
The Evening Standard, New Society, and to Robin Middleton
at Architectural Design.
In June 1966, Price met with Middleton, who was on the
editorial staff of Architectural Design, to discuss publication of

116 The Architecture of Cedric Price

the Potteries Thinkbelt. In retrospect, Price doubted that the
editor-in-chief of the magazine, Monica Pidgeon, would have
been interested in publishing the project, since she might have
considered it a flight of fancy. However, Pidgeon was away, and
fortunately Middleton was in charge. He was enthusiastic, and
agreed to run "PTb: Life Conditioning" in the October issue of
the magazine.
Probably due to Banham's influence, New Society also carried
Price's Potteries Thinkbelt proposal in their 2 June 1966
issue, although the drawings and text were simplified for the
predominately non-architectural readership of the magazine.
Price also published a greatly condensed version of the text of the
Thinkbelt proposal in Essays in Local Government, edited by his
friend Ellis Hillman, a Labour member of the GLC.70
From MIT, Stanford Anderson wrote to Price, requesting a copy
of the Thinkbelt proposal. Price reported that Kenneth Frampton
also obtained a copy for the Avery Library at Columbia University.
Price wrote to the Stoke-on-Trent City library to ask if they might
be interested in purchasing a copy of the [Link] the head
librarian wrote back to say that there were not enough funds to
buy the plans, Price sent them a copy anyway, at no cost. Requests
for plans also came in from the Polytechnic College of Architecture
and Advanced Building Technology, and the North Staffordshire
Workers' E ducational Association. In addition, Price received a
letter from an administrator at the University of Keele, asking for
a copy of the Thinkbelt proposal:

I read with interest in The Sunday [Link] about your scheme

for a 'Think-belt'. If you have fuller details I would be grateful
for a sight of a copy. The press report makes no mention of
any connection between the scheme and Keele, and I hope
this is not because you think that Keele is 'too attached to
medieval origins' ! 71

The publication of Price's Thinkbelt plans began to attract the

attention of architects as well. Architect Richard Sheppard wrote
to Price to say:

I have read an account of your proposals for scrapping British

Railways and turning them into universities instead. I found it
fascinating, practical, salutary and funny-the self importance
of the academic mind would never recover from this blow.72

Critics began to discuss the Thinkbelt, and the reviews were mixed.
The project's challenge to the role of symbolic and fixed buildings
in architecture was one area of contention. A year after the initial
publication of the Potteries Thinkbelt plans, Reyner Banham
argued in "Flatscape with Containers" that the spectacularly
enormous dimensions of the new shipping containers entirely
redefined "monumentality" to mean something other than simply

The Potteries Thinkbelt 227

 large architectural symbols. 73 In the article, he noted that Price had
achieved a new "anti-monumentality" in the [Link], but what
exactly did Banham mean by anti-monumentality?
Although the Potteries [Link] was enormous, its constituent
elements were relatively small and constantly shifting from place
to place. Even the large Transfer Areas and Crate housing would
become insignificant specks in the vastness of the landscape of
the Potteries. In all likelihood, the visitor to the [Link] might
be disappointed upon arrival, or perhaps unsure if he or she had
actually arrived. There were no grand gestures, no legitimising
symbols of government power or monumental cultural institutions .
There were only modest industrial buildings and a few 'mobile
units' trundling along the rails. For all its size, the [Link] was
adamantly anti-monumental, and this-in addition to its unsentimental
application of modern technologies-was precisely what Reyner
Banham appreciated about it. It defined a new kind of architectural
scale, not of large buildings , but of a vast field of objects and
events . Banham felt that Price's [Link] had demonstrated that
vastness of architectural scale and need not entail symbolism,
monumental presence, or the pretensions of traditional public
institutions. To Price, the conventional role of architecture to provide
symbols of identity, place and activity in post-war Britain was
irrelevant and counterproductive (although his reclamation of the
industrial wasteland was arguably emblematic of the British post­
industrial condition) .
However, in a 1967 article called "'La Dimension Amoureuse'
in Architecture", architectural theorist and early proponent of
semiology and structuralism George Baird took the Potteries
[Link] to task for the same reasons for which Banham credited
it, that is, for its anti-monumentality.
Baird argued for a 'communicable', symbolic architectural code
of 'goals' , 'values', and 'ideals' from a Structuralist point of view.74
At that time, semiotics was becoming fashionable in London's
intellectual circles , and Baird was especially interested in applying
semiotic notions of meaning to architecture . He claimed that the
failure of architects, such as Price, to adopt this symbolic, "values­
laden'', dimension amoureuse, "poses . . . a dramatic threat to our
traditional concepts of society".75 He wrote, for example :

The Thinkbelt . . . i s designed in such a fashion a s t o eschew

communicativeness whatsoever. The fantastic effort in this
case has been devoted to establishing a maximally anonymous
servicing mechanism, rather than building in the traditional
sense at all. And the anonymity of that servicing function
is intended to be so complete as to avoid the buildings' standing
for any particular 'values' at all. Indeed, the designer's
rejection of 'values' is such that he has attempted to expunge
them not only from his building, but also from the education
it houses. 76

228 The Architecture of Cedric Price

Baird even suggested that the "value-free" lack of symbolism
of the Thinkbelt would turn students into mere objects:

If education became a service, and made no claims on

its students' values, then it would also be true that
the student could make no claims on that education's
values. The student would himself become merely an
unconscious part of the servicing mechanism.77

Baird must have concluded that this argument made

no sense, because he omitted it from the version of the
essay published in Meaning in Architecture, which he
and Charles Jencks coauthored in 1969.78 Baird claimed,
however, that the Thinkbelt did possess a strange sort of
anti-symbolism:

Insofar as that architecture [the Thinkbelt] did penetrate

[the students'] awareness-and that would surely occur
to some extent, in spite of the designer's intention, since
the alternative would constitute sensory deprivation­
then that architecture would present him with the most
concrete symbol we have yet seen of bureaucracy's
academic equivalent, the 'education-factory' .79

So, Baird managed to find symbolism (however perversely)

in the Thinkbelt after all. He continued his diatribe
against the Thinkbelt, concluding with an odd perceptual­
phenomenological twist to his 'structuralist' argument:

At the Thinkbelt . . . there is a failure to come to terms

with the building having an inevitable perceptual impact
of some intensity, which results in a contemptuousness
as distasteful as the paternalism it was intended
to supplant.80

In the later version of '"La Dimension Amoureuse' in

Architecture", Baird substantially toned down his caustic
criticism of the Thinkbelt and eliminated the last passage.
Baird may have come to realise that his dismissal of the
Thinkbelt might come to be seen as regressive and reactionary.
In general, Baird faulted the Thinkbelt for failing to signify
anything in particular, or at least, anything noble and
culturally sig:[Link]. Baird may have been correct in saying
that such architecture does pose a threat to "our traditional
concepts of society" .81 However, what he does not mention
is that "traditional concepts of society" in post-war Britain
had already been substantially dismantled. What he failed to
appreciate is that Price intended the project's meaning to be
open, and that part of the project's intended meaning was in
fact that conventional messages about education and public
institutions were not worth signifying.

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 229

 In defence of Price, Banharn responded to Baird's article, retorting
that the architect:

. . . has recently been attacked, not by some doddering old

architectural knight, but by one of the profession's most
esteemed younger intellectuals, George Baird, arch-priest of the
cult of 'values' (rather than human service) in architecture.
According to Baird, the Thinkbelt's avoidance of showy
monumentality (for which 'structuralism' is the current flip
synonym) will lead to practically every fashionable evil in the
book, from contemptuousness to bureaucracy (read all about
it, if you can stomach the prose 'style' , in the June issue of the
JoUI'naJ of the ArchitectUI'aJ Association) .82

Apart from Baird, the Thinkbelt was received politely, if not

sceptically. Price would later admit that the Thinkbelt "wasn't
a roaring success".83 Neither the government nor most of Price's
contemporaries appreciated his sharp insights and the implicit
critique of the British higher educational system, nor did the project
receive the critical attention of the Fun Palace.
Although Lord Kennet had issued the initial challenge to Price to
come up with the Potteries Thinkbelt, neither he, nor the Ministry
of Housing and local government, nor any other government office
expressed any interest in the plan. His initial charge to Price had
been in the form of an informal wager by a private citizen, rather
than a contractual brief on behalf of the Ministry. Kennet reported
that by the time Price had :finished the Thinkbelt in 1966, his duties
at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government left him no time to
study the proposal, and he does not recall ever having seen it. Herein
lies one of the persistent problems with both the Potteries Thinkbelt
and the Fun Palace. While Price spent a great deal of time planning
and fiddling with designs, he failed to establish a viable client or
any other institutional base for the projects. He had clearly not kept
Lord Kennet apprised of the progress of the Thinkbelt, nor had he
consulted him after that first meeting. Price seems to have preferred
to work in tranquil isolation. As 'practicable' as his ideas might have
been, this approach doomed them to remain on paper, while works of
more determined (if less visionary) architects have been realised.
The fact that the Thinkbelt coincided with the launching of the
Open University did not improve Price's chances. He first made public
his plans for the Potteries Thinkbelt in June 1966, three months after
Jennie Lee had published the Open University manifesto:

We shall establish the University of the Air by using TV and

radio and comparable facilities, high grade correspondence
courses and new teaching facilities. This open university will
obviously extend the best teaching facilities and give everyone
the opportunity of study for a full degree. It will mean genuine
equality of opportunity of study for millions of people for the
first time .84

230 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 M [Link] of the people whom Price might have interested in his novel
1 1< t ucational ideas were now otherwise preoccupied with the Open
r l 1 1 iversity, which overshadowed the Thinkbelt considerably and
1 [Link] to be a more practical solution to similar issues and
1 :oncerns for British education.

The absence of fixed buildings in the Thinkbelt may have been

111 ·Ice s response to the lack of genuine cultural consensus and
1) hesion (as Wells Coates defined it), but the public at large and
p rticularly those in positions of authority, had little interest
I n Price's critique of the paucity of values worth signifying in
1 :ontemporary British society. Moreover, the advanced technical
1 :ornplexity of the PTb may have seemed too far-fetched to a public
1 1 1 1 familiar with computers.
Although information technology was still in its infancy at
L i t e time, Price's paradigm for the Potteries Thinkbelt was the
c :omputer, capable of being reprogrammed and becoming an
c 1 n t,Lrely different instrument at different times and situations,
c lopeniling on changing requirements. What he failed to anticipate
I 1 1 his insistence on mobility is that the .fluidity and transformability
c 1 1' computer technology itself would permit flexibility even in
L i t e most conventional of structures. Long before the advent of
oumputers, eould not Mies' empty boxes have been considered
J ust as programmatically '.flexible' as Price's moving machines?
' l'h Open University, on the other hand, circumvented the need
l e l' buildings or even for a campus. Like his preoccupation with
r ybernetics in the Fun Palace the obsession with mobility and

ox pendability that Price shared with Banham may have been the
wr•ong technological road to follow, and may have been closer to
I.I) archaic mechanical paradigm of the Futurists than to that of
I . I t o virtual 'machine' suggested by cybernetics and computers.
'I'he fluid, non-fixed layout of the Thinkbelt may have ensured
1 1. 1 1 igh degree of adaptability to the rapidly changing needs of
1 11 I ucation. But, do .fluid minds necessitate a physically fluid
11. 1 •chitecture ? Or, was Price ultimately using mobility as a trope
Lo oxpress the intellectual condition of post-industrial society?
' I ' l l · Open University's approach to mass-education was in many
1 '< 11::1 pects a more practical and prescient application of electronic
t.1 1<Jl nology. For all its computerised control systems the Thinkb elt
1 1 1.1 1 1 relied on mechanical mobility, on railways and cranes. The
( l pe n University was equally mobile, yet its mobility was virtual,
1 1t it. literal and mechanical, and it did not rely on tracks, machines,
1 1.11d cranes. Unlike the Thinkbelt, it was not tied to any specific
graphical location where people must congregate. Although the
' itmpus' of the Thinkbelt was vast, the 'virtual campus' of the Open
l / 1 1 l versity was infinite. A simple television would instant]y convert
11 ny space, anywhere, any time, into a part of the Open University
11 1 H I could reach many more people at their own convenience.
l�rom a formal perspective, the decentralised architecture of
t . t i o ' l'hinkbelt anticipated the trend in art towards the large site
1 1 1 1 1Lf1llations of artists such as James Turrell and Robert Smithson.

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 23 1

 In her 1985 essay, "Sculpture in the Expanded Field", Rosalind
Krauss described the dispersal of the post-Renaissance 'monument'
within the negative ontology of Postmodern sculpture.85 She
outlined how Minimalist sculptors challenged traditional notions
of art by rejecting the centralised object in favour of a new and
anti-monumental spatiality, created in the tension between
discrete and dispersed elements . The Potteries [Link] might
similarly be thought of as a dispersed architectural field that
dissolved traditional notions of the object-building as the sine
qua non of architecture. Yet, the [Link] was more than a formal
challenge to traditional architecture. It also confronted normative
social and educational patterns. Ultimately, Krauss' formalist
understanding of art as a hermetic and apolitical discourse
fails to account for the deeply social and political dimensions
of such architecture.
Yet, in establishing a precedent for architecture as a field of
elements rather than as a singular, monumental object-building, Rem Koolha:u
Pare de I. Vlllette
Price's work opened the way for other architects, such as Rem competition entry, 1 986
Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. Their 1986 designs for the Pare hn;igo courtesy of O M A

232 The Architecture of Cedric Price

de la Villette competition were founded on notions pioneered by
the Potteries Thinkbelt, and much of their concept derived from
Price's ideas . For example, Koolhaas' rationale for his design
emphasised change and indeterminacy as key factors:

During the life of the park, the programme will undergo

constant change and adjustment. The more the park works,
the more it will be in a perpetual state of revision. Its 'design'
should therefore be the proposal of a method that combines
architectural specificity with programmatic indeterminacy.
In other words, we see this scheme not simply as a design
but mostly as a tactical proposal to derive maximum benefit
from the implantation on the site of a number of activities . . . .
The underlying principle of programmatic indeterminacy as
a basis of the formal concept allows any shift, modification,
replacement, or substitution to occur without damaging the
initial hypothesis.86

Rem Koolhaas
Pai-c de la Villette
competition entry, I 986
Koolhaas' scheme echoes
the programmatic
palimpsest of
overlapping and
simulataneous activities
that characterised both
the Fun Palace and
Potteries Thinkbelt.
Image co ur-tesy of O M A

The Potteries Thlnkbelt 233

 The passage might aJmost have been written by Price about
the Potteries Thinkbelt . Tschumi's description of his Pare de la
Villette design could likewise apply to the Thinkbelt, but aJso bears
striking resemblance to Koolhaas' statement above: "La Vill ette is
a term in constant production, in continuous change; its meaning
is never fixed but is aJways deferred, differed, rendered irresolute
by the multiplicity of meanings it inscribes."87 Tschumi's concept of
architecturaJ 'disjunction' is similarly applicable to the Thinkbelt:

The concept of disjunction is incompatible with a static,

autonomous, structural view of architecture. But it is
not anti-autonomy or anti-structure; it simply implies
constant, mechanical operations that systematically Bernard Tschuml
produce dissociation in space and time, where an Pare de la Vil lette
competi tion entry, 1 986
architectural element only functions by colliding with I mage courtesy of
a programmatic [Link] Tschumi architects

I I I I I

I I I

I I I

I I I I I

234 The Architecture of Cedric Price

Conversely, the constant, mechanical operations, to which Tschumi
refers, seem better to describe the Thinkbelt rail cars, endlessly
shifting in response to the changing programme, than the static
'folies' at La Villette. Of course, unlike the Thinkbelt, the Pare de
la Villette was not a socially motivated rethinking of industry, and
its 'industrial artifacts' are mere 'folies' in an entertainment park.
The vastness of the Potteries Thinkbelt also anticipated Koolhaas'
concept of 'Bigness', an architectural condition where beyond
a certain size, the whole "can no longer be controlled by a single
architectural gesture, or even by any combination of architectural
gestures".89 The indeterminate nature of the Thinkbelt likewise
foreshadowed a similar characteristic of Bigness: "A paradox of Bigness
is that in spite of the calculation that goes into its planning-in fact,
through its very rigidities-it is the one architecture that engineers
the unpredictable."9° Koolhaas' recent thoughts on the problem of
the "slowness" of architecture-specifically that the rapid pace of
programmatic change requires a provisional, indefinite and incomplete
architecture-also bears the imprint of Price's concept of
improvisational design.91 The affinities between Price's architectural
ideas and the subsequent thinking of Koolhaas and Tschumi are
hardly coincidental, since Price taught at the Architectural
Association during the 1970s, when Koolhaas was a student there,
and while Tschumi was an AA unit master.
The scale of reuse and reclamation in the Thinkbelt also
invites comparison to the vast waterfront renovation projects
in Boston and Baltimore of the 19 70s and 80s. Whlle the malls
and condominiums in those redevelopments created excellent
opportunities for private investment, the Thinkbelt could offer
little in the way of straightforward dividends. Clearly, the Potteries
Thinkbelt would have required state finance and control, and the
returns on capital investment would have been realised gradually
as social and economic benefits on a regional and national scale,
not as short-term investor profits. Moreover, the Thinkbelt was not
a commercial shopping centre or converted loft, but actually touched
on productive aspects of industry in a changed economy. Price's
radical proposal to transform obsolete industries into sites of post­
industrial activity is something that none of these projects would
ever achieve . Whlle the mobile and technical aspects of the Thinkbelt
have had little effect on subsequent architecture, the project's most
innovative feature was its novel redeployment of the industrial
landscape into an entirely new kind of industry. Nonetheless, it is
much easier to win support for less radical commercial development
than for a non-profit centre of education and entertainment.
The Potteries Thinkbelt is perhaps closest in spirit to the recent
Ruhr Valley reclamation project. Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley,
which stretches 225 kilometres through North Rhine-Westphalia,
suffered the same decline as the North Staffordshire Potteries. Once
the heart of German coal and steel production, in the 1970s it became
a landscape of disused smokestacks, coke ovens, and rusting rail
lines. In 1989, the Westphalian government began an initiative called

The Potteries Thinkbelt 235

 IBA (similar to that already in place in Berlin) intended to reclaim
and redeem the ruined landscape through innovative architectural
projects. Landscape architect Peter Latz won the design competition
for the first phase-the conversion of an old steel mill outside the
city of Duisberg. Latz created a 568 acre post-industrial landscape,
in which the old slag heaps and ruined blast furnaces remained as
the matrix of a new park-like setting. Like the monumental ruins
of the old Roman Baths of Caracalla, old factories have been turned
into open air concert halls, rail lines are now bicycle paths, and
the canals and gasometres are used by a local scuba club . Nature
continues to reclaim the derelict structures, creating a post-industrial
fusion of ecology and the aesthetic of technological decay. There are
differences, of course: Latz's project is about entertainment and
leisure, while the PTb focused on learning and technology. Yet both
projects seeked to redeploy the symbols of a dead industry in order
to enhance the post-industrial economy.
The old landscape of the industrial revolution had been reclaimed
by entropy and decay, becoming a new 'nature', which served as the
foundation for Price's interventions. In building atop the ruins of
Britain's industrial past, Price did not propose to renew, reclaim,
revitalise, or reforest, nor did he intend to rehabilitate the wasteland
into the romantic ruins of a nostalgic age of steam and smoke.

Peter Latz + Partner

Struktvrele1J1en)e Plan of Landscape Park
Duisburg Nord, Ruhr
Val ley, G e rmany, 1 9 90
Image courtesy of Peter
Latz + Partner

236 The Architecture of Cedric Price

His design was a supplement to the landscape, an intervention
creating a discourse of the ruined and the new. Once a centre of the
industrial heartland of Britain, now devoid of meaningful social
or economic activity-the ruined landmarks of the Potteries stood
as the empty signifiers of a lost industrial age, whose carpet of
significance has slipped out from under them, leaving them both
drained of immediacy and filled with absent potential.
Price's redeployment of the ruined industrial landscape of
the Potteries was a realisation and a metaphor of the post-war
transformation of Britain. The Potteries Thinkbelt was a microcosm
of Price's much larger vision for architecture and for England, not
limited to symbolically 'utopian' monuments and megastructures,
but instead an integrated system of economic, educational and
social relations and factors deployed within an interactive
architectural matrix. The shifting landscape of the Thinkbelt was
also a metaphor for a changing ideal of a restless utopian vision
of Britain's new post-imperial and post-industrial role in the world. Peter Latz + Partn er,

For all its size, there were no grand gestures, no legitimising symbols
Landscape Park, D u i s burg
Nord, Ruhr Valley,
of government power or monumental cultural institutions. The G e r m an y, 1 990
'centre' of the Potteries Thinkbelt was absent, dispersed and deferred. I m age c o u r t e s y o f
Peter Latz + Partn e r
It was an architectural critique of hegemony and of the historical Photograph b y
metanarratives of British hierarchy, privilege, and monuments. C h rista P a n i c k

The Potteries Thinkbelt 2 3 7

 The Potteries Thinkbelt proposed a new, informational model
of architecture, a landscape/network whose algorithmic and fluid,
self-regulating behaviour mirrored the character of post-industrial
information technologies . The mobile units were like information
quanta, the switches and transfer stations like the logical gateways
of a vast computer circuit. The mobile landscape of the Thinkbelt
described a new architectural polemic of individual agency and
freedom as an alternative to the institutionalised collectivity of
grids and curtain walls characteristic of the architecture of the
Modern Movement.
Unlike the depleted utopias of the post-war era, the Potteries
Thinkbelt was not a sublimation into formalism, nor the deferred
future of some distant visionary ideal, but a palpable and potential
reality made possible through a recasting of obsolete systems of
production. The Thinkbelt bears strong similarity to the utopian
scope of some of Fuller's projects, as well as the contemporary
megastructural schemes of Archigram, Nieuwenhuys and GEAM.
Price's project, however, was not simply an architectural novelty,
but an all-encompassing proposal of utopian dimensions for
wholesale social and economic reconstruction. Price was sceptical
about the ability of architecture alone to be an effective agent
for such a broad transformation of the national topos. He
recognised that in addition to architecture, such a comprehensive
plan would also require the implementation of equally progressive
economic and pedagogical models. Therefore, his proposal included
radically new educational curricula, as well as new industrial
structures and methods.
The utopian appeal to scientific and technical education in
the Thinkbelt also suggests striking similarities between Price's
Potteries Thinkbelt and Francis Bacon's 1626 utopian novel,
New Atlantis.92 Bacon's utopia differed from Sir Thomas More's
utopia of a century earlier. More was concerned largely with social
reform through laws, religion, customs, and morals, while Bacon
sought to improve society through science. He proposed a new
epistemological model in his Templum Seculorum, which amounted
to a technical college, "instituted for the interpreting of nature and
producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men".
Price would have agreed with Bacon's opinion on contemporary
education: "In the customs and institutions of schools, academies,
colleges, and similar bodies destined for the abode of learned men
and the cultivation of learning, everything is found adverse to
the progress of science."93 In their respective proj ects, both Bacon
and Price proposed new modes of knowledge and enquiry which
favoured science while rejecting established systems of education
and thought.
This comparison is not to suggest that Price was somehow
following Bacon's example, nor that he was seeking to recreate
Bacon's utopia. What is significant is the fact that both Bacon and
Price confronted a crisis of knowledge at the time of paradigm
shift. In Bacon's day, this was the transition from a Medieval world

238 The Architecture of Cedric Price

view of the sanctity of received knowledge and ancient authority,
to an era of modern methods of scientific inquiry. Bacon challenged
the pervading sense of 'Cosmic Decline', the idea that while the
ancients had enj oyed the vigour and keen wit of humanity in its
youth, contemporary society had entered its miserable old age,
its faculties and intellect declining.94 For Price, the crisis was the
paradigm shllt from the structures and traditions of industrial and
imperial E:qgland to the post-industrial, post-imperial era of the
early information age in Britain.
What remains provocative and unique about Price's Potteries
Thinkbelt is his recycling and reuse of the obsolete industrial
detritus of a bygone epoch as the basic infrastructure for a post­
industrial age. More than architectural form, it is this idea that
remains most intriguing.

The Potteries Thinkbelt 239

Conclusion:
F ro m Agit - P ro p
to F ree S pace
 In this book, the histories of the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt
have served to trace the evolution of Price's work from the early
days of Agit-Prop inspired situations to a new architectural
paradigm of freedom and choice. Although these projects originated
in the heady optimism and romantic fascination with science and
technology of the 1960s, Price attempted to transcend the naivete
and fantasy that pervaded so much of the cultural discourse of the
era. His philosophy of architectural indeterminacy and personal
empowerment developed out of his understanding of the potential
of architecture as a means of negotiating the social and economic
uncertainties of post-war Britain. Price's preoccupation with
expendability and change may therefore be regarded as a trope for
the rapidly changing values and the iconoclastic libertarian spirit
of the 1960s. As social instruments aimed at promoting class
mobility, Price's work was informed by his ethical and polemical
insight into the fluidity of contemporary social, political and
economic contexts . The programmatic flexibility and formal
indeterminacy of his work are an architectural analogue to the
particular transformations experienced throughout post-war
British society.
Price became one of the first architects to use information
technology to create an architecture responsive to variability of
form and use. Although he was not the only architect in the post­
war years to develop an interest in computers and other emerging
technologies, his application of new technologies was unique. In
sharp contrast to Archigram and to High-Tech architects, whose
uses of technology remained largely a matter of symbolic and
aesthetic imagery, Price made computers an integral part of his
designs. However, he never saw technology as an end in itself. Like
Buckminster Fuller, he viewed the field as a convenient and efficient
means of permitting individuals unprecedented agency and control
over their environment. In both the Fun Palace and Potteries
Thinkbelt, social vision and individual freedom were his consistent
motivation in the application of technology. His goal was to exploit
new means to enable architecture to adapt to the changing needs of
society and, hopefully, to enhance the quality of life as well. Price's
success was equalled only by that of the Japanese Metabolists, who,
although they came to share many of his ideas, seemed to have
arrived at them independently from common sources. Despite his
deep commitment to individual freedom, Price seemed unaware
of the latent Orwellian implications of social control-especially
in the cybernetic aspects of the Fun Palace-and the prospect of
technology run amok undoubtedly cost the project the support
of a great number of people on the left.
Price was not alone in his interest in change and indeterminacy.
During the 19 50s and 60s, chance and improvisation played an
increasingly important role in music and art. John Cage's random
music and Alan Kaprow's unscripted and improvisational
'Happenings' were well-known in Britain. As early as 1959, artist
Gustav Metzger issued his Manifesto of Auto-Destructive Art, and

242 The Architecture of Cedric Price

invited London gallery visitors (Cedric Price among them) to
watch his acid-paintings self-destruct, morphing from rectangles
of stretched nylon into shapeless masses of goo on the floor.1
Decades before computer-based art, former Fun Palace team
member Roy Ascott began to merge the avant-garde trends of
Pop Art, Fluxus, and Happenings with cybernetics and nascent
information technology to create artwork that would interact
with and respond to the presence of gallery-goers.
While these contemporary discourses on indeterminacy and
chance in art fired Price's imagination, as an architect his concern
was in finding a practical means of integrating improvisation into
architecture. Rather than rely on conventional mechanistic and
determined design methodologies, he derived new architectural
principles from the emergent fields of information technology,
cybernetics, and game theory, which are, in essence, a means of
modelling and systematising chance and indeterminacy.
As such, his work marked a significant displacement of Modern
architecture from a Platonic metaphysics of unchanging idealism,
purity, and abstract space, to a Heraclitean view of a world in
constant flux. While the great social and scientific preoccupation of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had been the perfection
of a causal and deterministic model of a mechanistic world, twentieth
century science experienced a gradual shift towards information
and indeterminate systems theories. Indeed, we might consider
science in the twentieth century as the site of sustained challenges
to the Newtonian paradigm of determinism and positivism and
the subsequent rise to prominence of probability, relativity and
complexity. The theoretical models of Werner Heisenberg and
Max Planck, and Price's own work was shaped in part by these
new theories.
Price's abiding interest in the temporal aspects of architecture
also bears closely on the work of Henri Bergson, whose theory
of duration reconciles time and indeterminacy with the realities
of the modern age. Since Price thought of architecture in terms of
events in time rather than objects in space, Bergson's theories
of duration and time provide a useful tool for understanding his
work.2 To Bergson, reality was not discrete objects and isolated
matter, but an endless and seamless process of becoming. He
conceived of being as time and duration, continuous flux and
infinite succession without distinct states. To both Bergson and
Price, time was always of the essence. The farmer's emphasis
on clarifying the distinction between time and space ("state
problems and solve them in terms of time rather than of space")
corresponds to Price's own design methodology.
Price's novel approach represents a figure-ground reversal of
normative architectural practice, which seeks solutions primarily
through built form. For example, he sought to differentiate
between spaces and events, as he did in his infamous aphorism
that, "the best advice to a client who wants to build a house might
be to leave his wife".3 To Price, the ambiguous proposition 'house'

Conclusion: From Agit-Prop to Free Space 243

 concealed within it multiple overlapping concepts which confuse
the physicality of dwelling (as space) with the temporality of
dwelling as the ongoing interpersonal relations of matrimony and
family life (events in time) . He often argued that architecture
wasn't always the appropriate solution to every problem, and that
the architect must take care to understand the difference between
spaces and events and not confuse the two. In this respect, his
understanding of architecture would appear to fulfil Heidegger's
concept of architecture as the space of human activity rather than
as structure or enclosure.4
Price articulated many of the themes and ideas soon to
become central to the emerging critique of Modern architecture
and if only for this reason, he can be reagarded as a visionary
architect, whose influence on architectural discourse has been
extremely significant. He was the first architect to recognise novel
applications of information theories for a new adaptive virtual
architecture as temporal events rather than as formal objects. He
redefined the role of the architect from that of master form-giver
to that of designer of a field of human potential, a 'free space' in
which programmatic objectives are free to develop and evolve.
He entrusted the public with unprecedented control over their
environments and over their own individual destinies. More than
any formal attribute or style, it was Price's socially motivated
abdication of the traditional, patriarchal role of the architect
that is most central to his work. Price's effect on architectural
discourse has been significant, particularly in this respect. In his
explanation of the concept of 'Bigness', architect Rem Koolhaas
echoed Price's renunciation of architectural authorship: "Bigness
is impersonal: the architect is no longer condemned to stardom. . . .
Beyond signature, Bigness means surrender t o technologies; to
engineers, contractors, manufacturers; to politics; to others. It
promises architecture a kind of post-heroic status-a realignment
with neutrality."5
Price's claim to the title of 'anti-architect' can also be seen as an
architectural analogue to Roland Barthes's theory of the "Death
of the Author", which argued that the intentions and prescriptions
of the creator were less relevant to a text than the subjective
reception and interpretation by the reader. 6 In particular, the Fun
Palace might be considered a 'readerly' architecture, since both
form and function were determined not by the author/architect, but
by the individual users themselves. Throughout his career, Price
simply tried to provide a kit of tools to enable people to perform
their own ad hoc cultural bricolage. Despite his efforts to disavow
authorship, to disperse authorship across a collaborative team,
and to create a 'readerly' architecture, the Fun Palace continues to
be inextricably identified with him. This is perhaps not surprising.
Since the days of Alberti, architecture has been identified with
the persona of the architect. The modern concepts of genius and
authorship have applied with equal force to literature, art, and
architecture, and histories of Modern architecture tend to be

244 The Architecture of Cedric Price

organised by architect, rather than by region or type. Certainly it
is more seductive and less challenging to speak of heroic architects
and their buildings in the quasi-Frankensteinian terms of creator
and progeny than it is to consider buildings as the depersonalised
narrative of collaborative design teams.7
Price's pursuit of an architecture of free choice and free space
saw further development in his 1976 Generator project for the
Gilman Paper Company in Florida. Generator was intended to be
a visitor's centre, consisting of 150 wooden modules which could
be assembled and configured to create a variety of programmatic
space situations. It would be:

... a forest facility for between one and one thousand visitors . . .
who are deemed to benefit from this response environment,
sited, designed and s erviced to enrich freedom of thought.
In this scheme architecture is used as an aid to the
extension of one's own interests . . . . A 'menu' of items caters
for individual and group demands for space, control,
containment and delight.8

At the entrance, a computer interface would engage visitors in

dialogue to tease out their particular interests and preferences,
and the modules would be automatically adjusted to suit the visitor.
The site would therefore endlessly vary as a result of the input
from successive visits. If the site had not changed for some time,
the central computer would become 'bored' and initiate random
changes on its own. Generator marked a transition from Price's

Sketched elevation
of modular panels,
Generator project, for the
G i lman Paper Company,
Florida, 1 976- 1 979
Graphite, coloured pencil,
black and red ink on
wove paper
37.9 x 50.2 cm
I mage courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for
Architecture, M ontreal

/·1.
,- ,.<: I> ·' ,\

�- �-
l"if7r°(c....,,,.;.. ' :e n..<

Conclusion: From Agit-Prop to Free Space 245

 early socially responsive designs to a new concept of architecture as
free space, which he explained by gastronomic analogy:

The individual eater's choice of particular parts of a meal placed

before him, the speed at which he eats, the amount he eats and
the change in his choice of particular items during eating are in
no way controlled by the size of the plate or its position on the
table. However, to enable these gastronomic choices to take place
both the plate and the stability of the table are required. He may
of course move the plate from one table to another during his
meal or indeed have his plate refilled. Such an analogy works
well for the Generator, where the various draft site layouts are
described as menus on the drawings. The plate as the architecture
and its relationship to the supportive table as its siting enable the
comparison of free space to an operational matrix.9

In Generator, Price once again invoked concepts of game theory

and play as a means of regulating an indeterminate architectural
environment: "the 'design' of space is an operation that primarily
establishes a set of rules that enable as large a range of possible
games to be played by as large a number of measurement machines,
including humans, as probable."10 Free space, Price explained:

. . . must be seen not merely as the canvas for a new piece of

architecture but as a continuing resource able to be fertilised
by the introduction of built structuring which does not in itself
and through its very form imply a particular use . . . . TIME AND
TIMING enable FREE SPACE to become an operational matrix.11

Sketched p e rspective
view from north- east,
Generator, 1 976- 1 97 9
Black crayon, black and
red i n k on wove paper
2 1 . l x 30 cm
Image courtesy of
Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
Canadien d'Archi tecture/
Canadian Centrn for
Architecture, Montreal

246 The Architecture of Cedric Price

A further development in Price's concept of self-determined
architectural free space was his 1995 Magnet project. He
proposed the installation of ten 'magnet' sites in and around
London; architectural events designed to facilitate urban life
and movement in the city even if they might 'overload' already
intensively used sites. The magnets would create provocative
situations designed to surprise and delight as both personal
experience and social condenser. Magnets would be installed in
locations normally overlooked, such as the air space above
roads, lakes, and railways. Inherently temporary and mobile,
the stairway, promenade, arcade and transporter magnets could
be relocated around the city to assure continual change and
avoid institutional permanence. Once again, Price's interest was
in creating architectural relevance within a constantly evolving
present tense of time and place. The project would be a free space
of urban activity, designed to anticipate and respond to the needs
and desires of the user. In Magnet:

Anticipatory Architecture is essential to equate its use and

delight with contemporary social, economic and political
items of the new. Thus, Anticipatory Architecture must only
anticipate the nature and form of future human services
that require architectural attention for them to function
but also design future enclosures that through their siting,
form, life span and uniqueness enable activities hitherto
impossible and therefore socially undefined Community and
certainty, solitude and doubt must be welcomed equally.12

Given Price's vision of users as creators, it is worth asking if

his work was a genuine effort towards social emancipation, or if
it was merely a paternalistic gesture motivated by philanthropic
compassion. Were the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt modern
manifestations of the patronising-and also elitist-architectural
philanthropy that produced Walter Besant's People's Palace? The
fact that Price appears to have reserved his Clowns Limited for
an intellectual elite while evidently regarding the Fun Palace as
a project for the 'masses', would seem to indicate a persistent
class consciousness that belies the otherwise seamless pretext
of anti-paternalism and classlessness in his work. Yet, Price's
conscious avoidance of determined programmatic direction and
patriarchal authorship in these works would seem to refute such
criticism. Price intended projects such as the Fun Palace, Potteries
Thinkbelt, Generator and Magnet as "cultural launching pads"
where people were free to determine their own destinies, and in
this sense, these are arguably instances of 'activist architecture'.
In his book, .Architecture and Utopia, Manfredo Tafuri
outlined the larger ideological problems inherent in architectural
activism. The inherent contradiction, as he saw it, was that
architecture (even the most radical) was still inscribed within the
structure that it attempted to change. Therefore, he concluded:

Conclusion: From Agit- Prop to Free Space 247

 For this reason it is useless to propose purely architectural
alternatives. The search for an alternative within the
structures that condition the very character of
architectural design is indeed an obvious contradiction
of terms.13

Did Price's architectural innovations achieve more than purely

'architectural' alternatives? The determination of the relative
success or failure of his attempts to use architecture to effect
fundamental social change depends on whether or not we view
his work as having the potential to transform the conditioning
structures of society. Although he was inextricably situated within
the economic and social conditions of the day, he strenuously
avoided architectural conventions and ethical compromise with
normative social institutions. I believe that had they been built
as designed, the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt may well
have had significant social and economic consequences. The real
question is would any of these projects have retained their activist Axonometric view of
potential if actually realised? cube arrangements,
Generator, 1 976- 1 97 9
Price was consistently practical in his designs and intent on
B l ack i n k a n d adhesive
their completion, yet the realisation of his most provocative screentone sheet on
projects was ultimately thwarted by the inherent contradictions wove paper
38.2 x 7 2 . !
of the same milieu that inspired them. In retrospect, the confidence
cm
I mage courtesy of
that these well-conceived and historically appropriate projects Cedric Price Fonds,
Collect i o n Centre
would be eagerly accepted could be perceived as naive. Since the
Canadien d ' Architecture/
Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt posed fundamental challenges Canadian Centre for
to basic cultural institutions and hierarchies it is not surprising Architecture, M ontreal

248 The Architecture of Cedric Price

that the authorities were less than eager to encourage them.14 The
1960s may have been a period of seemingly endless possibility,
but not everything would be accepted by those in power. The
implicit critiques of society and culture in Price's projects would
hardly have been reassuring to those already concerned over the
state of the nation.
Would his work have remained transgressive had he actually
made the inevitable compromises required to see these projects
built? If Price had found backing by wealthy investors and venture
capitalists, his work might have been realised, though at the cost
of its social benefits. Imagine, for example, the effect that charging
admission might have had on the Fun Palace. Would the Fun Palace
have become another Centre Georges Pompidou? Sensing that such
concessions would have undermined his ideals, might Price have
deliberately avoided taking steps necessary to realise his visions
in order to keep them ideologically pristine? If so, then the very
uncompromising idealism from which these projects originated
thwarted any chance he might have had to effect real change, and
his architecture would be merely symbolic of radical activism. Yet, Shadow studies,
even in projects directly funded by corporate interests, such as Generator, 1 976- 1 979
B l ac k i n k, adhesive
Generator, Price's architecture has maintained a neutrality from screentone sheet on
tendentious polemics. wove paper
3 8. 1 x 7 2. 1 cm
Certainly, Price's work brought to light many new ideas about Image courtesy of
the relation of architecture to culture and change. The fluid, Cedric Price Fonds,
non-fixed layout of the Potteries Thinkbelt would have been highly Collection Centre
Canadien d' Architecture/
adaptable to the rapidly changing needs of the sciences and to Canadian Centre for
a nation in flux. The re-use of the existing railway infrastructure Architecture, Montreal

. .

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Conclusion: From Agit- Prop to Free Space 249

 was a cost-effective and short-term solution to educational and
housing needs. However, what is most provocative about Price's
recycling of industrial infrastructure in this project was the
recovery and redeployment of a vast derelict industrial district
as the centre for a new 'industry' of information. The Potteries
Thinkbelt marks the transition from a society of production to one
of consumption, from an industrial past to a technological future,
and from the determined and mechanical architectural, economic,
and social norms of the industrial age to the more fluid paradigms
of post-industrial and information societies . Price recognised that
Britain's future would lie in the fluidity of both physical structure
and human intellect rather than in the rigidity of traditional
manufacturing processes, class hierarchies, and object-buildings .
However, literal mobility is not the only or even the best way to
achieve the goal of architectural free space and virtuality. Despite
his intentions, in this project, Price remained tethered to the idea of
mobility as the physical manipulation of architectural elements.
There is an argument that a culturally symbolic architecture
may exist only within a robust culture characterised by consensus
and uniformity of social and political purpose. This was the essence
of Wells Coates's 1938 essay, "The Conditions for an Architecture
To-day" , in which he posed the following question:

Considering the present state of architecture and the present

state of society, is it indeed possible for architecture to exist
at aJl today? . . . A true architecture is the direct and most
complete expression of a ... society with a firm structure in
being and manifest in stable form freely accepted by all classes
of the people; and a society where the art of governing and
being governed exists on firm foundations. The answer is that
these conditions do not exist today, and the conclusion is that
architecture does not, and indeed cannot, exist until these
conditions are fulfilled.15

Coates argued that for such a coherent cultural expression to be

genuine, it must coincide with consensus and cohesion within the
culture in question. It was precisely these cohesive prerequisites
to a 'true architecture' that did not exist either in the Britain of the
post-war years, or of today.
The same reasoning is highlighted in points three and four in
"Nine Points on Monumentality" written in 1948 by Jose Luis Sert,
Fernand Leger, and Sigfried Giedion:

3. Every bygone period which shaped a real cultural life

had the power and the capacity to create these symbols.
Monuments are, therefore, only possible in periods in
which a unifying consciousness and unifying culture
exists. Periods which exist for the moment have been
unable to create lasting monuments.

250 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 was a cost-effective and short-term solution to educational and
housing needs. However, what is most provocative about Price's
recycling of industrial infrastructure in this project was the
recovery and redeployment of a vast derelict industrial district
as the centre for a new 'industry' of information. The Potteries
Thinkbelt marks the transition from a society of production to one
of consumption, from an industrial past to a technological future,
and from the determined and mechanical architectural, economic,
and social norms of the industrial age to the more fluid paradigms
of post-industrial and information societies. Price recognised that
Britain's future would lie in the fluidity of both physical structure
and human intellect rather than in the rigidity of traditional
manufacturing processes, class hierarchies, and object-buildings .
However, literal mobility is not the only or even the best way to
achieve the goal of architectural free space and virtuality. Despite
his intentions, in this project, Price remained tethered to the idea of
mobility as the physical manipulation of architectural elements .
There is an argument that a culturally symbolic architecture
may exist only within a robust culture characterised by consensus
and uniformity of social and political purpose. This was the essence
of Wells Coates's 1938 essay, "The Conditions for an Architecture
To-day" , in which he posed the following question:

Considering the present state of architecture and the present

state of society, is it indeed possible for architecture to exist
at all today? . . . A true architecture is the direct and most
complete expression of a . . . society with a firm structure in
being and manifest in stable form freely accepted by all classes
of the people; and a society where the art of governing and
being governed exists on firm foundations. The answer is that
these conditions do not exist today, and the conclusion is that
architecture does not, and indeed cannot, exist until these
conditions are fulfilled.15

Coates argued that for such a coherent cultural expression to be

genuine, it must coincide with consensus and cohesion within the
culture in question. It was precisely these cohesive prerequisites
to a 'true architecture' that did not exist either in the Britain of the
post-war years, or of today.
The same reasoning is highlighted in points three and four in
"Nine Points on Monumentality" written in 1 948 by Jose Luis Sert,
Fernand Leger, and Sigfried Giedion:

3. Every bygone period which shaped a real cultural life

had the power and the capacity to create these symbols.
Monuments are , therefore, only possible in periods in
which a unifying consciousness and unifying culture
exists. Periods which exist for the moment have been
unable to create lasting monuments.

250 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 4. The last hundred years have witnessed the devaluation
of monumentality. This does not mean that there is any lack
of formal monuments or architectural examples pretending
to serve this purpose: but the so-called monuments of recent
date have, with rare exceptions, become empty shells.
They in no way represent the spirit or the collective feeling
of modern times.16

These two points define unifying culture as the prerequisite

for monumental architecture, and assert the impossibility of
a genuine monumentality within a transient society which
exists 'for the moment' .
In his 1962 essay, " Symbolic and Literal Aspects of Technology",
Alan Colquhoun likewise pointed to the relationship between
architecture and ambient conditions, noting that "architecture
can exist only in the context of its sociological, technical, and
economic means, and as soon as it ceases to do this it dies".17 He
further argued that "however much society needs an architecture
which expresses its ideals and which provides for the human spirit,
there is a danger that its economic mechanisms may make such Diagrammatic plan,
Generator, 1 976- 1 979
an architecture impossible".18 Coloured crayon, pencils
These arguments might well lead to the conclusion that non­ and inks on d iazotype
cohesive, non-consensual cultural and economic conditions (such
36 x 70.2 cm
I mage courtesy of
as described in Britain after the war) would necessitate the sort Cedric Price Fonds,
of transient, anti-monumental architecture that Price proposed. Collection Centre
Canadien d' Architecture/
Architect Bernard Tschumi underscores this point, observing Canadian Centre for
that "architecture only exists through the world in which it Architecture, M o ntreal

� ;HI -.. . , � ....

....... ... ·.t� ....- ·-

Conclusion: From Agit·Prop to Free Space 251

 locates itself. If this world implies dissociation and destroys unity,
architecture will inevitably reflect those phenomena".19 Following
this premise, Price would seem to have risen above the laissez-faire
spirit of the 1960s to demonstrate an uncanny awareness of the
significance of the fundamental shifts which were displacing
normative centres of all aspects of post-war life and culture. Price
confronted and exploited the creative possibilities of uncertainty,
and maintained his faith that the best of all possible architectural
futures is not some generalised condition dictated by the architect,
but whatever future individuals choose to define for themselves.
Price pioneered the idea of an engaging, even demanding
architecture, and his legacy pervades contemporary architecture
culture. I would argue that a project such as Peter Eisenman's
recent Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is heir to Price's concept of Perspective sketch,
Magnet, 1 99 5
architectural free space and self-determination. This vast field Graphite and blue pencil
of pre-cast concrete slabs defines an undulating virtual landscape on tracing paper over
at odds with the actual topography of the site beneath. The rising coloured photostat
2 1 x 30 cm
and falling landscape allows visitors at some points to stand Image courtesy of
above and survey the site, and at other places to sink deep into Cedric Price Fonds,
the chasm of the slabs. Set in uncomfortable proximity to each Collection Centre
Canadien d'Architecture/
other, the forest of slabs instills a palpable sense of bodily awareness, Canadian Centre for
and the need to make sense of the ambiguous significance of the Architecture, M o ntreal

252 The Architecture of Cedric Price

place. It has become a locus for mourning, picnics, play, contemplation, Conceptual sketch,
and making love. Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial compels the need Magnet, 1 995
Coloured crayon,
to understand, but does not specify what we should think of it. Like watercolour, graphite,
Price's work, it is Rorschach architecture, and its conceptual roots black and red ink o n
are grounded in the notions of free space established by Price. As wove paper
25.S x 20.3 cm
an anti-monument that neither proclaims meaning nor directs Image courtesy of
reading, it exists as an ambiguous space for the free play of thought Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
and conjecture. Canadien d'Architecture/
The difference between the traditional narrative monument Canadian Centre for
which attempts to express cultural consensus and direct meaning, Architecture, Montreal
and the anti-monument of free space may likewise be seen in the Conceptual sketch,
stark contrast between the powerful yet ambiguous black granite Magnet, 1 995
slash of Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, and Graphite on wove paper
2 1 .4 x 1 5 cm
the contrived pathos of the Capitalist Realist statues of soldiers Image courtesy of
searching for lost comrades opposite her anti-monument. While Cedric Price Fonds,
Collection Centre
the soldiers sculpture possesses a kind of sentimental Norman Canadien d'Architecture/
Rockwell narrativity, Lin's project evokes strong emotions, but Canadian Centre for
does not specify what we should feel. Architecture, M o ntreal
The genesis and failure of the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt
projects reflect the reality that, despite the optimism pervading the
1960s that genuine cultural or architectural transformation
seemed within reach, the sluggish machinery of governmental and

. .

I • y

� ' /' � ( s . " i i i1/( [.•,...,y

;1 '-1/\(TN f T /c"f

MAGNET

Conclusion: From Agit-Prop to Free Space 253

 economic bureaucracy would resist change. In the end, neither
Price nor any of his cadre seems to have possessed
the political savoir-faire or resolve to negotiate the difficult
political terrain of conservative resistance to the Fun Palace
and Potteries Thinkbelt.
The absence of clients and constraints in "side projects"
such as the Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt allowed Price
substantial creative freedom. However, when he tried to realise
these projects, the lack of a sponsor became a serious liability,
and he was forced to try to convince an unprepared and
unenthusiastic constituency of the worth of his ideas.
Price recalled his optimism when, in the wake of the failure
of the Fun Palace, he began work on the Potteries Thinkbelt:
"I was so relieved to be doing something which I thought was
rather more realisable [than the Fun Palace] . "20 Only later did
Price come to realise how few people understood and shared his
architectural vision. He avoided outright bitterness, but noted
that "it is ironic that the response of other architects at the time,
1963, was totally hostile while now 20 years later-the period
proposed for its socioeconomic life-architects find it 'interesting'
and 'important' ".21
Despite the setbacks, Price has played an enduring role in the
continuing struggle for a radical architectural alternative to the
mainstream. Architect Rem Koolhaas wrote:

Price wanted to deflate architecture to the point where it

became indistinguishable from the ordinary. Price's critique
was all the more devastating because deep down, it was
built on shared sensibilities-a liquid core of socialism-
that was only allowed to appear in dandified form: irony,
sarcasm, perversity, hard core pragmatism, sometimes
bordering on the philistine . . . . Nobody has ever changed
architecture more with fewer means than Cedric Price.
With lapidary epigrams, skeletal drawings and a polemical
genius for mobilising the real against the pretensions of a
still surprisingly megalomaniac profession, he changed the
terrain of architecture. In the 60s, like a kind of puritanical
Oscar Wilde, Price used ridicule and humour to devastating
effect to dismantle one by one the most holy ambitions of an
unquestioned profession.22

Yet, Price's cultural critique of architecture was by no means

an unqualified success, and for a time, he and his ideas would be
swept away by new architectural tides, as Koolhaas observed:

Until the early 70s, it seemed that Price had architecture

pinned down, wrestled it to the ground. How could he know
that its 3,000-year-old mythology would be rescued by the
laughing gas of the market economy and the fertility drug of
postmodernism that in the 80s endowed architecture with

254 The Architecture of Cedric Price

 the glamour and vitality of the commodity? Its most dubious
features-form, space, symbol-resurrected in a postmodern
festival of relevance in which Price's voice suddenly registered
as that of an ogre, a spoilsport. At the moment where Price
was ready to administer the coup de grace, the beast of
architecture revived and walked away as if nothing had
happened, entering a crowded arena, to return to a new farce
of mock-heroism. Rogers, Foster, Archigram, once all dedicated
to Cedric ' s formlessness, now produce 'shapes', all the more
noticeable for their uneducated, untested naivety.23

Though now rooted in the history of architecture, Price's work has

remained relevant, and has once again found centre stage.
As architect Arata Isozaki observed in 2003:

. . . the collective body of Cedric's discourse constitutes the

essence of the 'Age of Cultural Revolution'. The idea is how to
get across to 'squares' what can only be communicated via the
odd and eccentric and ironical, and in order to do just that, it
seems to me, Cedric makes a conceptual object of himself and
performs in all kinds of different scenes. And as such, as now
the twenty-first century takes off directly from the Cultural
Revolution of the 1960s, Cedric's work will once again come to
occupy a core position in new discourse.24

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the English

architecture culture of the 1960s, and especially in the work of
Archigram and Price. His works have resurfaced in a series of
exhibitions, books, and articles. Why, after decades of obscurity,
have Price's work and ideas captured the imaginations of architects
and historians in the present day? From the safe distance of
40 years, armchair radicals who might never have dreamed of
supporting the Fun Palace or Potteries Thinkbelt at the time can
now loudly proclaim their enthusiasm for these projects. It is
fashionable to be associated with radical ideas, as evidenced by the
recent popularity of 1960s Situationism in academic circles.
In addition to the appeal of 'radical chic', the renewed interest
in the period may also in part reflect a desire to set the historical
record straight and give credit where credit is due. Although never
built, these projects exerted undeniable influence on the subsequent
development of architecture. Mike Webb commented on Archigram's
debt to Price: "We absorbed a lot from Cedric, but it was never very
deep. We'd hear him talk about things, and then we'd go and draw
it up without really understanding what he was about. We were
primarily interested in drawings, not his ideas ."25 David Greene
agreed that Price was more committed than Archigram:

One of the differences is that we were less serious than him.

The person who drove Archigram along was Peter Cook. He
has immense energy and staying power, and to that extent he
dominated Archigram . . . . Archigram, in a fairly mindless way,

Conclusion: From Agit-Prop to Free Space 255

 read the consumer culture without any sense of critique of
anything. Cedric's work is always more political. He was more
interested and better informed in technology as well. He had
a mine of information about technology. I think Archigram
tended to turn more towards the image of technology, what
it looked like.26

The resurgence in interest in the architecture of this period might

also be explained by a sense of nostalgia for the future-visions of
the past and for the innocent and naive optimism of the 1960s. How
else to explain the reappearance of bell-bottoms, platform shoes, or
the renewed popularity of The Beatles and such faux-period films
as Austin Powers? 1960s London was an ideal time of innocence,
unbridled optimism and endless possibility, when all that was solid
in the British Empire had melted into air.
In "What the Dome Could Have Been Like", Jude Kelly compares
the vapid monumentality of London's recent Millennium Dome to
the ill-fated Fun Palace. Drawing a parallel between the failure of
official nerve with regards to both proj ects, she asks:

The next time two great thinkers such as Littlewood and Price
offer such vistas to us, will we participate? Will we lobby? Or
will we wait and see what the politicians do and then speak of
our impotence and disappointment?
Everyone's found great glee in damning the Dome-but
would those newspaper editors have backed an artist-led
scheme instead? Any radical grappling with the social,
environmental, economic and artistic status quo has to suffer
the indignities and pains of derision, mainly due to our own
fear of change. The Millennium was a chance to overcome that
English temerity-and we didn't.27

Although Kelly refers specifically to the Fun Palace in this instance,

her observations apply equally to Price's work as a whole. The
real issue, as Kelly suggests, is whether any nation is capable of
the rigorous self-examination required to give voice to visionaries
such as Cedric Price or Joan Littlewood. At the time, Britain was
not up to the task, and it appears that the rest of the world may
be no more capable of such courage today. The real significance of
the resurgence of interest in Price and his work is the enduring
relevance of his ideas, the failure of architecture to deliver on
the challenges he first posed more than four decades ago, and the
recognition by new generations of architects of his ideas.
Price might have enjoyed greater success had he been willing
to compromise his principles and resign himself to aesthetic
manipulations that posed no challenge to the established order. It
was his independence, however, that allowed Price to negotiate the
highly volatile and uncertain conditions of his time through his
work. The Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt remain visionary
'anti-monuments' for a fragmented and chaotic Britain-and ideas

256 The Architecture of Cedric Price

of potent relevance to Western post-industrial society.
After 40 years as Price s proposals may have seemed, his ideas
were indeed appropriate to their time, and may well have had a
profound effect not just on architecture but on society as a whole .
The success of the Inter-Action Centre bore witness to Price s
achievement if only on a small scale. We will never know how the
Fun Palace, Potteries Thinkbelt, or Price's many other unrealised
projects might have altered the future in which we now live, or if
their radicalism would have been compromised if built.
Finally, it is important to rememer that although Price's work
represented a pioneering architectural synthesis of technology,
cybernetics, and [Link] theory, these were the means, but never the
objective. Throughout his life and career, he remained committed
to architecture as an instrument of social improvement. His
motivation was consistently social: the emancipation and the
empowerment of the individual. Price was quite explicit on this
point. Speaking to me of his work shortly before his death, he said
" [It] wasn't about technology. It was about people".28 Cedric Price with
students, c 1 990s
I m age courtesy
of Eleanor Bron

Conclusion: From Aglt- Prop to Free Space 257