- "...the 2 June 1966 issue of New Society (featured) Cedric Price's Potteries Thinkbelt..."
- (DR1995:0325, '[https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/380477/cedric-price-fonds/409704/professional-and-personal-records/409874/articles Articles]', [https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/380477/cedric-price-fonds Cedric Price fonds], at the [https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/ Canadian Centre for Architecture])
- "Potteries Thinkbelt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire"
- (DR2004:0089, '[https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/380477/cedric-price-fonds/396839/projects/402011/potteries-thinkbelt Potteries Thinkbelt]', [https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/380477/cedric-price-fonds Cedric Price fonds], [https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/ Canadian Centre for Architecture])
- to use the Potteries Thinkbelt study as a basis for further research and development.
- "This Thinkbelt study helps to indicate a valid national and regional distribution of educational institutions."
- (p.14)
- to indicate a valid national and regional distribution of educational institutions;
- a Thinkbelt study.
- "This study proposes a valid national and [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Regional regional] distribution of educational [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Institution institutions]."
- (p.484)
- ... that in [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Order order] to propose a valid national and [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Regional regional] distribution of educational [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Institution institutions] in 1964 [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Cedric_Price Cedric Price] [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Constructed constructed] a 'working hypothesis'. [1] [2]
- "The priorities in education are staff, equipment and buildings—in that order."
- (Herbert Haslegrave, Letter to The Times, 1965) [3]
- "...the choice is between the solid and permanent or the demountable and temporary. If well designed, sited and landscaped, temporary buildings can look attractive and almost everything can be taught and studied in them."
- "...education is in such a state of flux—it always is—and it is so subject to the effects of changing educational, philosophical, sociological and political ideas, as well as to economic crises (that it was only sensible for the) buildings to be adaptable."
- "Cedric Price's revolutionary proposal is that advanced education—and in particular advanced technical education—should become the new prime industry."
- (Robin Middleton, Introduction to the PTb, AD/10/66, p.483) [4]
- "The housing of a major activity such as education should be viewed in architectural terms as a demand to increase the availability of such a service on a national scale, although its dispensation may through necessity require a limited locale.This would appear to be in opposition to current higher educational practice where the containers are dressed up to look like a medieval college with power points and are located in gentlemanly seclusion."
- "An activity that will increasingly occupy a large proportion of everyone's life should be in contact with areas near and far where the rest of life is spent."
- "Education, if it is to become a continuous human servicing service run by the community, must be provided with the same lack of peculiarity as the supply of drinking water or free teeth."
- "A major industry, as a source of employment, wealth and delight, must be capable of being implanted and eventually supplanted, with the minimum of physical (i.e. built) fuss in order to avoid, in the case of the Thinkbelt, the Potteries being branded for all time as the ideal spot for scientific education. (Think of the terrible fate that be fell that rather pleasant little East Anglian market town.)"
- "Through its form and operation it provides a test-bed condition for large-scale peculiar 'imbalanced' urbanistic development."
- (p.84).
- "The only purchaser of the full Potteries Thinkbelt documentation was the Ministry of Housing and Local Government who bought the report and copies of every single drawing including the photo-montages."
- (Royston Landau, 1984)
- 192 reprographic copies
- 190 drawings
- 3 panels
- 0.15 l.m. of textual records
- 0.04 l.m. of photographic materials
- ([https://www.cca.qc.ca/en/archives/380477/cedric-price-fonds/396839/projects/402011/potteries-thinkbelt Potteries Thinkbelt], CCA, 1995-2006)
- '[https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/w/images/c/c9/Finding_Aid.pdf Finding Aid]'
- Learn More
- "For some years, AD has been publishing schemes, articles and comments by Cedric Price as one of the prime movers on the radical architecture scene. However, much of this work still remains unpublished and much of the published work requires rethinks and updated commentaries."
- (Peter Murray, Introduction to the Cedric Price Supplement, AD/10/70, p.507) [5]
- "...the challenge from the Junior Government Minister, Lord Kennet, to explain an alternative to the then popular 'new' universities (early sixties) produced the Potteries to take advantage of local unemployment, a stagnant local housing programme, a redundant rail network, vast areas of unused, unstable land, consisting mainly of old coal-working and clay pits, and a national need for scientists and engineers. At the time, though not built, its ideas were heeded by both the UK and US Administrations because, I think, of its immediacy in response to a know situation. It is ironic that the response of other architects at the time, 1963, was totally hostile while now twenty years later - the period proposed for its socio-economic life - architects find it 'interesting' and 'important'!"
- (From the introduction to the chapter entitled 'ACTION and inaction', p.18)
- "The ideal university was once described by Thomas carlyle as a collection of books."
- "I consider that the emphasis on resource is as relevant now as then."
- "The form that both such resources and their protection take is likely to be related increasingly to access and retrieval rather than collection and containment. ..."
- "The university will become more of a launching pad for ideas and less of a Mecca of accepted truths. ..."
- "Learning as a life-long activity is likely to reduce the importance of special provision of domestic accommodation for learners - of whatever age. ..."
- "what is the [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Value value] of [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/IT it] now - what is useful about [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/IT it] now, for you?"
- (quoted in '[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13710278-cedric-price?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=EUebzOPjpF&rank=1 Supercrit #1: Cedric Price: POTTERIES THINKBELT]', 2007)
- a transcript of Supercrit #1 (the event in November 2003);
- photographs from the exhibition and of the participants;
- pages of New Society, reproduced from the issue of 2 June, 1966, pp.14-17;
- 6 Project illustrations;
- the 'Life-conditioning' essay;
- pages of Architectural Design, reproduced from the issue of October 1966, pp.483-497;
- a transcript of CP speaking at the Potteries Thinkbelt exhibition in Madrid in 2002.
- "...the [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Potteries_Thinkbelt_study POTTERIES THINKBELT study] ([https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Price Price's] preferred word) serves as a useful primer for looking at much of his other [https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Works work]."
- (p.11)
- "Some things about the POTTERIES THINKBELT which became very clear – and maybe this is why Cedric chose this project – was its relevance today. This was, as Cedric himself pointed out in The Square Book, ironic, given that this was the time in which, had it been built, it would have been operating. Time was ever a critical medium on Cedric's proposals, and on the day of the Supercrit, it was really clear just how long-range, well worked out, prescient the PTb was. It pre-anticipated a post-industrial countryside - though Stoke was, in 1966, a very rare example of the social and physical wrecking power of industry in decline. It anticipated a boom in education - already in progress, but it anticipated the broader, more lateral and much later bits of it: the Open University, access to university for all, life-long learning - and proposed a different version for all of them. It assumed the need for integrating housing, employment, education, transport, leisure, amenity – in a way which still has not been realised. And beyond that, it insisted that all this should be flexible so as to respond to further change - the change of the next 40 years, after that."
- (ib., pp.124-125) [6]
- "... the two points where I think that Cedric engaged in this very constructive criticism of contemporary architectural trends were: firstly, in thinking about the university building and getting away from this imprisonment of the section - and, secondly, in thinking about communities, getting away from the trap of thinking about New Towns, and engaging with what was really there."
- (Jeremy Melvin, 2003)
- "A working hypothesis is a hypothesis that is provisionally accepted as a basis for further ongoing research in the hope that a tenable theory will be produced, even if the hypothesis ultimately fails. Like all hypotheses, a working hypothesis is constructed as a statement of expectations, which can be linked to deductive, exploratory research in empirical investigation and is often used as a conceptual framework in qualitative research. The term "working" indicates that the hypothesis is subject to change."
- ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_hypothesis Wikipedia])
Last edited 16 Mar 2021
Contact us
To contact Designing Buildings Wiki, please use the email addresses below:
| General | [email protected] |
| Editorial | [email protected] |
| Advertising | Simon Baxter [email protected] |
Featured articles and news
Electrical contractors welcome crackdown on late payment and push for clean energy.
Cyber Security in the Built Environment
Protecting projects, data, and digital assets: A CIOB Academy TIS.
Managing competence in the built environment
ITFG publishes new industry guide on how to meet the ICC principles.
The UK's campaign to reduce noise pollution: Mythbusting, articles and topic guides.
Setting Expectations on Competence Management
Industry Competence Committee.
New Scottish and Welsh governments
CIOB stresses importance of construction after new parliament elections.
The sad story of Derby Hippodrome
An historic building left to decay.
ECA, JIB and JTL back Fabian Society call to invest in skills for a stronger built environment workforce.
Women's Contributions to the Built Environment.
Calls for the delayed Circular Economy Strategy
Over 50 leading businesses, trade associations and professional bodies, including CIAT, and UKGBC sign open letter.
The future workforce: culture change and skill
Under the spotlight at UK Construction Week London.
A landmark moment for postmodern heritage.
A safe energy transition – ECA launches a new Charter
Practical policy actions to speed up low carbon adoption while maintaining installation safety and competency.
Frank Duffy: Researcher and Practitioner
Reflections on achievements and relevance to the wider research and practice communities.
The 2026 Compliance Landscape: Fire doors
Why 'Business as Usual' is a Liability.
Cutting construction carbon footprint by caring for soil
Is construction neglecting one of the planet’s most powerful carbon stores and one of our greatest natural climate allies.