Who is Cedric Price?
He is the guy
who designed the Fun Palace and the Pottery Thinkbelt.
He is the one
who built the kinetic Snowdon Aviary at the London Zoo.
He is the one always wearing a white collar and chomping a cigar.
Cedric Price, Selft-portrait, 1982, RIBA12989
Where does he come from?
Being
myself a compulsive reader I find personal libraries to be a fascinating tool
of investigation. Cedric Price’s personal books reveal that architecture was
for him a family business. With the Retriever, Eleanor Bron and Samantha Hardingham
did a terrific job in cataloguing each volume and tracing any available
information about the book’s origin: some are his father’s (the architect who
designed the 1930’s Odeon cinemas in the UK), some are his brother’s (architect
and planner who collaborated for many years with Cedric), and some are his own. But even more interesting is his office library, held now at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal together with the bulk of his archive. Before they
were transferred to the CCA, Price annotated many books adding further
importance to the collection. Browsing through them all gives a good overview
of his architectural passions.
Engineering is certainly a major topic. Let me use his notes as orientation.
On Bauten der Technik, ihre Form und Wirkung: Werkanlagen by Werner Linder he wrote:
On Building and Structural Tables: For Architects, Builders and Engineers by Frederick Hyde Blake he wrote:
On Conveyors and Cranes: Including Continuous Elevators, Stackers, Skip Hoists, transporters and Electric telphers by Williams H. Atherton he wrote:
On Machine Drawing: For the Use of Engineering Students in Science and Technical Schools and Colleges by Thomas Jones he wrote:
On Riccardo Morandi by Giorgio Boaga he wrote:
On Prefabrication: A History of its Development in Great Britain by R. B. White he wrote:
On Vladimir G. Šuchov, 1853-1939 : die Kunst der sparsamen Konstruktion he wrote:
Then there are books about British architecture, books about the future, books about ideas that changed the world, books about how things work, books that he received from friends. Finally there is a series of odd comments that I would take as evidence of his personality.
On Sweet Disorder and the Carefully Careless: Theory and Criticism in Architecture by Robert Maxwell he wrote:
On Phoenix at Coventry: The Building of a Cathedral by Basil Spence he wrote:
On Intentions in Architecture by Christian Norberg-Schulz he wrote and then added:
On Treasury of Trees by Herbert L. Edlin he wrote:
On Brunel and his world by John Pudney he wrote:
On The Major Seaports of the United Kingdom by James Bird he wrote:
On Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film, and the City by Katherine Shonfield he wrote:
There are hundreds of books that would be worth mentioning but, while waiting for Samantha Hardingham's definitive anthology on the work of Price, I refer you to the CCA catalogue.
Cedric Price's office library at the CCA. Photograph Mariana Siracusa
Engineering is certainly a major topic. Let me use his notes as orientation.
On Bauten der Technik, ihre Form und Wirkung: Werkanlagen by Werner Linder he wrote:
On Building and Structural Tables: For Architects, Builders and Engineers by Frederick Hyde Blake he wrote:
On Conveyors and Cranes: Including Continuous Elevators, Stackers, Skip Hoists, transporters and Electric telphers by Williams H. Atherton he wrote:
On Machine Drawing: For the Use of Engineering Students in Science and Technical Schools and Colleges by Thomas Jones he wrote:
On Riccardo Morandi by Giorgio Boaga he wrote:
On Prefabrication: A History of its Development in Great Britain by R. B. White he wrote:
On Vladimir G. Šuchov, 1853-1939 : die Kunst der sparsamen Konstruktion he wrote:
Then there are books about British architecture, books about the future, books about ideas that changed the world, books about how things work, books that he received from friends. Finally there is a series of odd comments that I would take as evidence of his personality.
On Sweet Disorder and the Carefully Careless: Theory and Criticism in Architecture by Robert Maxwell he wrote:
On Phoenix at Coventry: The Building of a Cathedral by Basil Spence he wrote:
On Intentions in Architecture by Christian Norberg-Schulz he wrote and then added:
On Treasury of Trees by Herbert L. Edlin he wrote:
On Brunel and his world by John Pudney he wrote:
On Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film, and the City by Katherine Shonfield he wrote:
There are hundreds of books that would be worth mentioning but, while waiting for Samantha Hardingham's definitive anthology on the work of Price, I refer you to the CCA catalogue.
