Delightful Fun: A Cedric Price Thinkbelt for our Times ESALA Edinburgh, Scotland architecture display, British architect work
Delightful Fun: A Cedric Price Thinkbelt for our Times Exhibition in Edinburgh
10 November 2024
Exhibition: 11 November – 22 November 2024
Venue: Matthew Gallery, Minto House, 20-22 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JZ
Opening hours: Mon 10am–2pm, Wed 10am-2pm, Fri 10am-2pm
Daniel Lomholt-Welch
Images: Ana Bonet Miro, Mark Dorrian, Nicky Regan, and Daniel Lomholt-Welch
Cedric Price Thinkbelt Exhibition
A touring exhibition and associated events in several UK Schools of Architecture celebrates the legacy of British architect Cedric Price (1934-2003) – RGU, Aberdeen (October 2024); ESALA, Edinburgh (November); GSA, Glasgow (December); U. of Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent (January 2025); BCU, Birmingham (February); London Metropolitan U. and U. of Westminster (March).
Nicky Regan
Two original market stall prototypes from the Drawing Matter Collection, designed by Price and never exhibited together before, serve as the centerpiece of the exhibition. Displayed alongside these prototypes are facsimiles of drawings from three projects— Fun Palace (1961–75), Potteries Thinkbelt (1964), and Westal (1987–89)—and a range of ephemera, including broadsheets, exhibition catalogues, postcards, montages, photofigraphs, and offprints of articles. Recordings of Cedric Price’s lectures fill the space with his presence and ideas, while film excerpts from the Fun Palace introduce the work of radical theatre producer Joan Littlewood, mastermind of the project and a key interlocutor in the development of Price’s architectural ideas. These artifacts provide a glimpse into the diversity of Price’s practice and the interdisciplinary conversations that animated it. Importantly, the curation also reflects the various collections and archives, both in the UK and abroad, where his work can be encountered today.
Ana Bonet Miro
Who do we design for? How little need be done? For how long is the design useful? How to make time visible in our designs? What might design for pleasure and delight mean today? In the spirit of Price’s Potteries Thinkbelt project, this initiative aims to stimulate discussions about a selection of pedagogies and practices at each school that are resonant with Price’s design principles. These include the provision of user-centred designs that increase choice, encourage change, do more with less, make time visible, and create responsive designs that delight the communities they serve.
Ultimately, ‘Delightful Fun’: a Cedric Price Thinkbelt for our Times is an invitation to reflect on how architecture can be useful, timely, and delightful, and how these qualities may outline a more permeable profession that responds to current environmental and social challenges.
Mark Dorrian
Dr. Ana Bonet Miró, Martín Brown, Prof. María Martínez Sánchez, co-curators
Special thanks to: Cedric Price estate, Joan Littlewood estate, Drawing Matter, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Architectural Association Archives, Pidgeon Digital, The British Library, St John’s College Library, British Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, and NY/Scala.
Ana Bonet Miro
Design and coordination: Dr. Ana Bonet Miró
Design assistant: Daniel Lomholt-Welch
Technical support: Rachel Collie, David Taylor, Malcolm Cruickshank, Paul Charlton, Paul Diamond
Graphic design: Nicky Regan
Administrative support: Bonnie Thomson, ESALA, and RKEI, ECA
Assembled with the assistance of students from MArch Crossing Tangier studio and ESALA colleagues
Ana Bonet Miro
Thinkbelt Network coordinators:
Prof. María Martínez Sánchez and Neil Lamb, Scott Sutherland School of Architecture, Robert Gordon University
Dr. Ana Bonet Miró, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, ECA, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Luca Brunelli, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art
Dr. Islam Abohela and Dr. James Robertson, School of Architecture, University of Staffordshire
Alessandro Columbano, Birmingham School of Architecture and Design, Birmingham City University
Prof. Christian Frost, School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University
Kate Cheyne and Samantha Hardingham, School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster
Martin Brown, Independent Researcher
Nicky Regan
Delightful Fun: A Cedric Price Thinkbelt for our Times, ESALA images / information received 101124
Location: Matthew Gallery, Minto House, 20-22 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JZ
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