Two stand-out shows lead the exhibition programme at the Architectural Association School this spring: AA Archives: Projects, Personalities & Publics, which explores 100 years of architectural experimentation, and Wish We Were Here, a celebration of visionary 20th century architect Cedric Price curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Samantha Hardingham

AA Archives: Projects, Personalities & Publics AA Gallery 19 - 26 March 2011 The AA School’s legacy of architectural experimentation across the first 100 years of the Diploma School is brought to life through objects revealed in the AA Archive. The show features many celebrated and influential projects including the legendary ‘Tomorrow Town’, a pioneering modernist town planning scheme from 1937–38; an experimental; a ‘Flexikit Steel Home’ pack by Andrew Holmes from 1972, presented in a plastic bag complete with self assembly model components; and Brian Ma Siy’s 1984 ‘Terminal 5 Air Hotel’. These and many other projects by former students, including Sir David Chipperfield, Tony Fretton, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and Cedric Price, will be exhibited in the gallery alongside student-designed posters, rarely-seen film footage, and sound recordings of iconic AA events.

WISH WE WERE HERE - CEDRIC PRICE: mental notes AA Front Members’ Room Private View: Friday 4 March 5–26 March 2011 Wish We Were Here is curated by architectural writer Samantha Hardingham,of the AA and critic and historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery. The show is held in collaboration with the AA Slide Library archive, The Cedric Price Estate, Jan Nauta and Scrap Marshall (POA) and Kilian Fabich and Stella-Sophie Seroglou ,students of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG), supervised by Wilfried Kühn, Armin Linke and Markus Miessen.

The original exhibition was initiated by the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, ‘People Meet in Architecture’, directed by Kazuyo Sejima and organised by the Venice Biennale; this restaged version is shown at the Architectural Association School with many thanks.

Philosopher, sir?’

‘An observer of human nature, sir’, said Mr Pickwick (The Pickwick Papers or The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens)*

Cedric Price (1934–2003) was an architect, thinker and, above all, an Englishman of extraordinary generosity towards his subject. Although during his lifetime he built very little, his visionary thinking has an enduring influence on architects working today, including Norman Foster and Renzo Piano. He had an independence of mind the like of which can only come from a fondness for humans and a fascination for human nature. In the words of his uncle, Jack Price, he worked tirelessly to invest his architecture with the ambition of ‘dignifying life generally’. For Price the moral and ethical principles implied in any design speculation are privileged over and above variations on the artefactual byproduct.

In this respect the role of the many rich collaborations over his lifetime, conversations and talks amongst audiences, engaging with the media as a means of initiating discussion, and the more personal dialogue presented in his notebooks were all critical in developing his design thinking on the themes of participation, anticipation, indeterminacy and, must crucially, delight.

The films and drawings from Price’s personal notebooks that appear in the exhibition present Price doing what he did best over a period of 40 years - constantly challenging our understanding of what architecture might be, in discussions with students, colleagues, strangers and himself. *The Pickwick Papers was a favourite of Cedric Price – he held 16 copies in his library at home, with one copy especially reserved for travelling.