The Fun Palace of Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price as a Cultural Project

Architecture, Media, Archives is the first serious study of the complex relations between Littlewood and Price, reframing the Fun Palace as an extended media project and positioning Littlewood more clearly as co-designer.

Drawing on extensive archival material, the book considers how, due to a lack of institutional support, the aims of the Fun Palace – to transform the passive mass-audiences of post-war consumer society into active citizens, through forms of self-directed, pleasure-led and open exchange – were realized through different 'sites of information' throughout the 1960s. From broadsheets, pamphlets and journals to films and press news, the book addresses the conditions of production, circulation, storage and reception of these 'sites' and reveals how they not only recorded the transformation of the project, but also fundamentally enhanced and informed its meaning in specific ways.