Lecture - Coimbra 2007

Cedric Price's Generator: The various design phases, consultancies involved and material produced
Gonçalo Furtado

“[M]odernist thinking was affected by the breakthrough attitude of the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, there were many parallel avant-garde practices, including Archigram and Yona Friedman; and they presented their work jointly with Cedric Price in the 1966 I.D.E.A.. … . This maverick of British avant-garde architecture was a tireless promoter of flexible impermanent architecture open to users’ participation, ... . Throughout his carreer, Price developed impactfull projects, such as the Aviary, Fun Palace, InterAction Centre and, later, Magnet. From 1976 onwards, Cedric Price worked on a project engaged with systems and computers - the Generator. This envisioned a flexible architectural complex on the Florida-Georgia border, consisting of a grid into which a crane would deliver cubical spatial modules and other components in various arrangements. This … [presentation] provides an ... account of the project, encompassing the various design phases and consultancies involved, and reveals Price’s exhaustive pursuit of an impermanent architecture open to users[‘ participation from 1976 to late 1979].”
(in: Gonçalo Furtado, “Envisioning and Evolving Environment: The Encounters of Gordon Pask, Cedric Price and John Frazer”, … (Research supported by FCT).
Acknowledgements: Neil Spiller, John and Julia Frazer, Howard Shubert, Amanda Heitler, Ranulph Glanville and Nic Bailey.