Stanley Mathews: Cedric Price and the Architecture of Complexity
In May 2011 A+DS & the University of Strathclyde were priviliedged to be joined by Professor Stanley Mathews, Chair of Architectural Studies at Hobart and WIlliam Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York and author of the monograph 'From Agit Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price' (Black Dog, 2007)
Professor Mathews revealed a new sphere of research he is about to embark upon which examines the multidisciplinary discourse that has driven the incorporation of complexity within architectural design.
This train of thought has led Mathews back to Cedric Price's Fun Palace and the various developments of the 1960s that influenced the conception of the project, ranging from postwar changes in social attitude within British society to exciting new technological advances such a Gordon Pask's theories on cybernetics that brought forward a whole new realm of possibility for the future.
Professor Mathews explains the complexity of design within Price's proposal for the Fun Palace which aspired to create an interdeterminate environment adaptable to programatic requirements. It was Price's incorporation of these wide ranging schools of thought in his design that set his work far appart from his modernist contemporaries and keeps the intentions of his designs as relevant today as they were in post-war Britain.
The talk is introduced by Dr Barnabas Calder, historian and lecturer at the University of Strathclyde and curator of the Cedric Price: Think the Unthinkable exhibition was shown at The Lighthouse, Glasgow from 31.03.2011 until 03.09.2011.
Please click below to hear the presentation in full.
Headline image credit: Cedric Price Fun Palace: Interior perspective ca.1960-1964, pink and greeen coloured pencil on reprographic copy paper, 26.4 x 40.4cm Cedric Price Fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal