One design concept, are also players combined
One of his most evolutionary andambitious projects is the well know ‘Fun Palace’ which unfortunately was neverbuilt.
The visionary project was intended to be constructed in 1961 on thebanks of the Thames for the liberaltheatre director Joan Littlewoods. The Fun Palace was a proposal for an alternateeducational leisure center that was intended to accommodate numerousprogrammatic and spatial reconfigurations introduced by its occupants.Littlewoods imagined the Fun Palace as an imaginative and productive openingfor this anticipated windfall of leisureliness. Moreover, she believed that thedesign of the Fun Place was a way to introduce to the British communityinnovating experiences and chances of enduringlearning and discoveries. Her vision included a theatre where the audience isthe dominant element of the design concept, are also players combined both wellwith Cedrick Price’s architectural idea of a cooperative and ever-changing settingwhich would stand as a “laboratory of fun”, featuring moving walls and floors, collaboratingpanels and while also an “expandable conference center”.
Cedric considered the ‘theatrical’ concept as a problemnot of motionless and compact ‘structure’. Even though it was never comprehended, unlikeother influential projects of the 1960s it was fully envisioned to be constructed.Furthermore, approachingthe design and the concept of the Fun Palace, Cedrick Price started by thinkingand considering Joan Littlewoods’s ‘theatrical’ concept as an interestingproblem to solve and not as a stagnant and solid building, but in terms of a differentand new kind of dynamic and vibrant architecture which would allow numerous facilitiesand would be able to continuously adjust to change.
Continuously, It wouldallow be a network of multiple functions and uses, a space of alternationbetween non harmonized events. The spaces would have been boundlessly varied insize, shape, lighting and accessibility. In preference to seek design conceptsfrom the conventional range of modernist items and spaces, he deliberated the briefin temporal terms, and searched for the solution within the problems it imposed.The Fun Palace would have been a projectwhose concept and brief was in frequent alteration, which allowed various and unspecifieduses and functions. His designs started to describe and refer to a constantadapting architecture of continuous functions,in a endless process of construction, disassembling, and reassembly.
It wouldbe a immense framework where the working – class community of East London couldgather their own learning knowledge andleisure environments, where Littlewoods’s vision might be possibly understood,where the public could escape from the daily routine and ongoing presence and boardon a journey and an idea of imagination, creativity and individual expansion. CedrickPrice imagined the Fun Palace regarding the process, as functions in timerather than objects and solids in and open space, and celebrate uncertainty asa primary design principle and concept.The structure was designed as a flexible framework,where different types of activities would take place in a versatile spacearrangement , where the possibility of adapting and creating different types ofspaces with various arrangements would be the fundamental element of theframework’s design. The arrangement of the influential structure was analogousto a basilica with a central nave and two passageways, swapping the transeptwas a moving framework crane across over a system of five rows by fifteen steelpillars.
The central space would accommodate the fundamental activities(theatre, movies and music), while the side passageways would host the moresocial and relaxed servicing activities, such as restaurants, bars, gatheringareas, children areas and workshops. The adaptable ceiling blinds would protectthe users from the rain. Despite the fact that the structure did not compriseof external walls , the structure included warm air barriers to eliminate them.
The following space that would have existed, would modify its shape through impermanentand adjustable barriers: fiber panels, optical barriers, pressed aluminiumcurtains and curtains made of quilted lead foil 1. Moreover, the plans included a high-level suspensiongrid, which would be the only static element of the structure that was notcapable of movement, the rest of the components would be able to be adapted inany way while creating different types of spaces and environments. The complexwould gain pedestrian movement through the placements of the staircases in thestructure. The aspects of ‘fluidity and fun’ were enhanced deliberately by not having a specificentranceway which consequently allowed the public to walk freely throughout thestructure without the interference of a prescribed pathway and a set of rulesto follow.
