THEORY OF DERIVE THROUGH DUKE STREET
A Derive is a passage through varied ambiences. It's a playful constructive experience and behaviour. It involves psycho-graphical effects that are different from a traditional journey or stroll. The Derive is drawn by attractions and the urban terrain. Our Derive will be a Situationist drift through The Neighbourhood known as Duke Street.There is no map; no route and no path to follow. There is no compass. There is no Sat Nav. We will start at the start and end at the end. Just like Luke Rheinheart ( Dice Man) we will take a chance on the throw of the Dice...
Doctor Robert.
"Architecture is too slow in its realisation to be a problem solver."
CEDRIC PRICE
I first became aware of Cedric Price (1934-2003) in 1970 when I visited The Centre Pompidou in Paris. Cedric Price was an influential talismanic architect. He built little but influenced many, including Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas and Will Alsop.
The Pompidou Centre was a built Art Gallery and Fun Palace, a giant kit of Maccanno Parts. In 1964 Price had designed The Fun palace with Joan Littlewood as an Radical Interactive Machine for Entertainment and Education. His Potteries Think-tank was a completely new take on the meaning of University, located on an industrial brownfield site .
Perhaps his greatest influence was on the young Archigram group, still radically effective today after all the years. His Interactive Centre was built as a temporary and flexible community centre; it well passed it sell by date. One of his later projects was called Magnets, a series of linked urban projects in central London. Cedric Price drew like a dream, generating provocative visual ideographs and left a major Archive of his work in The Canadian Institute of Architecture.
Doctor Robert.