Contained within a metal-edged archival box – replicating those Cedric Price Architects (CPA) always used – the two-volume Cedric Price, Works 1952-2003 synthesises all of Price’s projects, works, articles, and talks for the first time. Although it was published in 2016, this huge and ambitious project by Samantha Hardingham remains a vital and endlessly re-visitable resource, such is the enduring relevance of Price’s extraordinary and ambitious career to contemporary architecture and design.

Many may only know Price – a significant voice in late 20th-century British architecture – from the radical, unrealised Fun Palace, and the vast nets of the Snowdon Aviary at London Zoo, one of the few built works from his oeuvre. However, as these books comprehensively demonstrate, his importance to post-war architectural thought was profound and spanned a wide range of endeavours.

Volume 1 captures Price’s career in its full breadth. An introductory section covers his childhood and education, with the remainder of the book split chronologically into four parts, each spanning roughly a decade of CPA’s work. Hardingham’s brief introduction to each part is followed by short, richly illustrated entries on every CPA project, utilising the full range of Price’s ‘in head’, ‘in house’, ‘in action’, or ‘in forward-minded retrospect’ drawings – the latter providing the subtitle for the anthology. Price’s economy with words and drawings is evident throughout, with diagrams, lists, and Price’s expressive cartoons accompanied by photographs of completed projects, although these become increasingly infrequent as the chronology unfolds.

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