An Ongoing Party at the Architectural Association: the Ludic Pedagogies of Cedric Price and Mark Fisher at the turn of the 70’s

At the turn of the 1970s, amid an institutional crisis at the Architectural Association, a curious form of academic survival took hold: play. This article explores how ludic pedagogies contributed to an unexpected upturn from a near-closure into a centre of international conversations about architecture. Through investigating Cedric Price’s involvement in the AD/AA/Polyark Tour, Mark Fisher’s founding of Nice Ideas Unit, and the AA’s pedagogical debates, we trace how humour, hesitation, and collective play helped shaping a renewed vision of architectural education. These were not marginal oddities but pedagogical tools that challenged professionalism and reimagined learning as a process rather than a product. The AA became not just a school, but a ludic conversation —an “ongoing party”— where learning meant rethinking, laughing, failing and building anew.