The exhibition about Cedric Price continues at Bureau Europa and can be visited until Sunday 22 March.
During TEFAF, a number of special activities are organized: Dr Tanja Herdt will give a lecture about Cedric Price and Jan Nauta, curator of the exhibition will give a presentation.
On Friday 13 March, the architect and architecture historian Dr Tanja Herdt presents a lecture on Cedric Price’s work. ‘A Laboratory of Social Interaction – the Architecture of Cedric Price’ starts at 19:30.
A laboratory of social interaction — the architecture of Cedric Price.
The British architect Cedric Price, 1934–2003, was well attuned early on to the paradigm shift of the information and service society. He devoted large parts of his professional life to finding answers to the new demands on the architectural practice. Mirroring the societal and technological changes of the 1960s and 1970s, architects were faced with a significant redistribution of power and influence. Where there used to be a singular client, there was now not only the “user” but “the individual” in his search for self-expression, demanding to be heard. Techniques of representation had to be adapted accordingly, as well as the strategies on how to identify the needs and specific demands on architecture.
Drawing on archival material of, inter alia, the McAppy project (1973–1975) and the Inter-Action Centre (1972–1977), dr Tanja Herdt will discuss the influence of science and technology on Cedric Price’s work. Price viewed architecture as cultural product, which is continuously shaped by the activities of its inhabitants, by artefacts and by technologies. Accordingly, he saw architecture as a social laboratory. When developing his process-based and user-oriented architecture he deployed organizational instruments and spatial interventions in order to create opportunities for people to shape on their own account their environment. His goals and methods, such as empirical studies and fieldwork, and the influence of new technical processes evidenced in his understanding of terms like environment, interaction, change and choice carry over into today's discussions on technology's influence on the human living environment and can still inform debates on participation, control, and freedom in architecture and design.
Bio Dr Tanja Herdt
Tanja Herdt examines issues related to architecture and urbanism. After studying architecture and urban planning at the TU Darmstadt and ETH Zurich, she obtained her PhD at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) with a thesis on Cedric Price’s work. Since September 2012, she has been at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) to lead the ‘Products and Spaces’ research. A book about her work, The City and the Architecture of Change, will be published this year by Lars Müller Publishers.
Please register via info@bureau-europa.nl. The lecture is in English. Admission is free.
On Saturday 14 March from 14:00 to 15:30, architect Jan Nauta, curator of 'CEDRIC PRICE: The Dynamics of Time', will give a presentation on the formation of Cedric Price's practice. He offers insight into the projects on display and the overall concept of the exhibition.
Please register for this tour via info@bureau-europa.nl. Admission is free
