Inter-Action Centre
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The Inter-Action Centre was one of architect Cedric Price's few realised projects. The community centre, sited at Talacre Public Open Space in Kentish Town, Camden, London was commissioned in 1964 by Ed Berman and Inter-Action Trust.[1]
Under construction at the same time as the Centre Pompidou, as a piece of architecture, the Inter-Action Centre crystalised much of Price's conceptual work on projects such as Fun Palace and Potteries Thinkbelt[2], constructed around an open framework into which modular, pre-fabricated elements could be inserted and removed according to need.[3] It was essentially a building that could be reconfigured over time as occupants requirements evolved.
Inter-Action Centre is notable in particular because it was one of the first buildings to make concrete the ideas of flexible architecture and impermanence, fusing information technology and urban construction with entertainment and educational activities.[4] Price's body of work as a whole had a tremendous influence on the architecture profession, and the Inter-Action Centre, one of his few realized schemes, also represented the conjunction of his approach to both systems theory as well as the impact of community activism.[5]
Often compared to Centre Pompidou and other high-tech buildings of the time, the Inter-Action Centre differed in being explicitly designed around a democratic approach to architecture. [6]
Price had been working with, and was influenced by, cybernetician Gordon Pask and used the Inter-Action Centre as way to present an architectural approach to second-order cybernetics and was one of the earliest buildings to demonstrate the changing role of the architect in contemporary society, a role more about designing systems than objects, and one in which occupants' interactions with each other, and the structure, was as important as the physical fabric. [7] The Inter-Action Centre was architectural evidence that Price's radical and utopian agenda could be materialized in a built form with a clear social agenda, [8] though there is a differing viewpoint that the building showed that his goals were not quite realizable in the real world.[9]
Price himself persuaded English Heritage not to list the building and supported its demolition in 2003[10] because he believed it had fulfilled its purpose as a temporary commodity with a short lifespan. [11]
Further Reading
References
- ^ "Inter-Action Centre - Cedric Price fonds". www.cca.qc.ca. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
{{cite web}}:|first1=missing|last1=(help) - ^ ""Anti-building" for the future: the world of Cedric Price | St John's College, University of Cambridge". www.joh.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "InterAction Project". Architectuul. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "Inter-Action Centre - Cedric Price fonds". www.cca.qc.ca. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
{{cite web}}:|first1=missing|last1=(help) - ^ "In absence of...just stories". www.cca.qc.ca. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
{{cite web}}:|first1=missing|last1=(help) - ^ Bonfante, Francesca (2021). "The "Machines" of knowledge: Cedric Price's Topicality" (PDF). International Journal of Architecture and Urban Studies. 6: 124–133. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
- ^ Herdt, Tanja (29 June 2021). "From Cybernetics to an Architecture of Ecology: Cedric Price's Inter-Action Centre". FOOTPRINT. 15 (1): 45–62. doi:10.7480/footprint.15.1.4946. ISSN 1875-1490. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
- ^ Aragüez, Marcela (June 2021). "Building Calculated Uncertainty: Cedric Price's Interaction Centre". arq: Architectural Research Quarterly. 25 (2): 108–124. doi:10.1017/S1359135521000233. ISSN 1359-1355. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
- ^ Xu, Grace (2021). "The Contradictions of Containing the Infinite in the Fun Palace". doi:10.26153/tsw/38072. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Murphy, Douglas (5 January 2018). "Cedric Price (1934–2003)". Architectural Review. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Aragüez, Marcela (June 2021). "Building Calculated Uncertainty: Cedric Price's Interaction Centre". arq: Architectural Research Quarterly. pp. 108–124. doi:10.1017/S1359135521000233. Retrieved 8 February 2023.