«The school as a city and the city as a school». Shadrach Woods and Cedric Price: experiments to rethink the university

«The school as a city and the city as a school» is the title of a lecture that Shadrach Woods gave his students in 1969, soon published on Harvard Educational Review. Through ‘the architecture of education’ he sought to reformulate ideas of how universities should function. This brought Woods to the experience of the Non-School (1966): a school without walls, in dialogue with the city. Price was likewise very active in this field, as a guest editor for the Architectural Design special issue entitled «Learning» (1968), as the author of Potteries Thinkbelt (1966), and as a founder of the experience of the Anti- University of London (1968). This article offers a critical comparison between the visions on education of Woods and Price, and their use of practices and methods of architecture for a radical discourse and experimentation around education.