The eccentric genius who inspired the Millennium Dome, the London Eye and the Pompidou Centre gets his own exhibition in Cambridge

Cedric Price (BA 1955) was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. His ideas continue to fire the imagination of successive generations of architects, planners and designers worldwide, though few of his projects were ever realized. His extensive archive at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal is among the most heavily consulted of their collections.

Drawing on a new collection of Price’s material being catalogued in Special Collections at St John's, this exhibition offers a taste of ‘CP’ and his work — provocative, playful and humane.

Cedric Price's design for a "Fun Palace", which was never actually built -
Cedric Price's design for a "Fun Palace", which was never actually built -

[Cedric Price's] former college at Cambridge University is now seeking to begin to redress that balance by mounting an exhibition explaining Price’s life and work as a radical architect who was ultimately “as famous for not building things as he was for building things”.

The retrospective at St John’s College, where Price graduated in architecture in 1955, looks at the continuing influence of the trenchantly iconoclastic architect who is credited with a succession of important developments in his field and yet built little.

Among his innovations was his strongly held belief that architects overrated their ability to change the world and should consider the idea of not building when looking at a project.

Price, the Staffordshire-born son of another architect who helped design Odeon cinemas in the 1930s, is best known in terms of his own work for the “free flight” aviary constructed from aluminium pyramids and draped with netting at London Zoo.

But curators of the exhibition argue that the architect should be equally remembered for his talent for standing convention on its head with projects ranging from a university on rails to a fun palace complete with an inflatable conference centre that nonetheless never made it off the drawing board.

Mandy Marvin, who curated the exhibition, running until January, said: “Price was like a grain of sand that irritates the oyster - the oyster in his case being the architectural profession. He was always provoking thought and response within the profession, including successfully lobbying RIBA to allow architects to recommend not to build.”

A lifelong socialist who likened life under Margaret Thatcher to living in an occupied country, Price designed around the philosophy that buildings should serve the needs of those that use them and be either transformed or demolished when they no longer matched their purpose.