Potteries Thinkbelt study: Further ongoing research
• Map of the PTb showing main routes, transfer, faculty and housing areas—Reproduced from GitHub
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[edit] FOREWORD
On 16 June 2024 I wrote to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) asking:—
- "...is the content of the copy of the report entitled 'Potteries Think Belt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire' (Reference. Number: DR2004: 0089) the same as the content published in Architectural Design, October 1966?"
On 26 June 2024, I received a reply from the CCA offering to send me a PDF document containing reference images of the report by the end of July. In the event, the file was shared with me on 8 August 2024.
Thus this article is able to take as its starting point the content of the report, an unpublished manuscript completed in February 1966, and compare it with the content of the article published in Architectural Design in October 1966.
It assumes:—
For the purposes of this article I have provided facsimiles of both the report and the article together with extracts from research notes picking out the main points.
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[edit] FACSIMILES OF THE KEY DOCUMENTS
[edit] ANALYSIS OF THE UNPUBLISHED REPORT
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Notes
Reference Number: DR2004:0089
- Title: 'Potteries Think Belt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire'
Form: textual records
Catalogued items within this file 0
People:
Description:
- three bound reports of 'Potteries Think Belt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire', Feb. 1966
Quantity / Object type:
Extent and Medium:
- 0.02 l.m. of textual records
Credit line:
Folder Number:
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[edit] • 1.0 INTRODUCTION
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Notes
Cedric Price felt that one of the major weaknesses of the British University system was:
- "The lack of awareness of both the correct scale and intensity at which such education should occur. Present institutions are both too small and too exclusive. Through lack of acceptance of advanced education as a prime national industry, the present context is in danger of lacking, on the one hand, recognisable social relevance, and on the other, the capacity to initiate progress rather than attempt to catch up with it."
- Cedric Price, "1.1 Introduction", Potteries Thinkbelt, (unpublished manuscript), February 1966, Cedric Price fonds.
Cedric Price claimed:—
Cedric Price also claimed:
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Notes
As Cedric Price explained:
- "The P.T.B. [Price's acronym for the Potteries Thinkbelt] is planned to break down the isolation and peculiarity associated with further education."
- Cedric Price, "2.2 Educational", Potteries Thinkbelt (unpublished manuscript).
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Notes
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[edit] • 8.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Notes
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[edit] ANALYSIS OF THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE
[edit] ALTERNATIVE ICONOGRAPHY
On 5 November 2003, speaking at the first Supercrit event, Roger Zogolovitch said:
- "... the POTTERIES THINKBELT demonstrates an effective instance of sustainability etc. etc. — while we know that the strength of the idea still stands in front of us as such a beacon of intelligence: it comes from the way we want to see how society could work with a logical investment, yet we still have to defend it, we have to defend the notion of the imagination and clarity of that thinking against the kind of stupidity, the dull perpetuation of iconography that displaced it."
- Roger Zogolovitch in Hardingham and Rattenbury (2007) 'Supercrit #1: Cedric Price POTTERIES THINKBELT', p.85
The images below enable one to make comparisons between the sites as they were before the Potteries Thinkbelt study and as they are in 2024.
Thus this article hypothesises:—
This is evidenced in the satellite images provided by the National Library of Scotland (NLS) in the Map images below.
[edit] • FACULTY AREAS
• Exported QGIS map to image indicating faculty areas as part of further ongoing research based on the Potteries Thinkbelt study. Click here to access map.
The rows of thumbnail images below include screenshots from a map of the PTb created in QGIS flanked by OS maps showing the sites before the PTb in 1961 (left) and satellite images (right) showing the sites after the PTb in 2024.
Hyperlinks to each OS map and satellite image on the NLS website enable one to 'learn more' about the faculty areas.
nb The 'Change transparency of overlay' slider enables further ongoing research.
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[edit] • TRANSFER AREAS
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Potteries Thinkbelt
Potteries Thinkbelt study
--Archiblog 06:20, 15 Aug 2024 (BST)