Big Idea: How conceptual cities of the future could float, walk or fry

By Catherine Armitage
April 26 2015 - 12:15am

The ancient city, as visionary British architect and thinker Cedric Price saw it, was a boiled egg: a dense compact centre protected by city walls. From the 17th to 19th centuries, in Price's simple yet seminal three-part sketch, the city was a fried egg. With the walls rendered obsolete by cannon fire, it remained dense in the middle but spread towards the edges. For Price the modern city was a scrambled egg, its former power centre widely distributed through blended industrial, business, retail and residential precincts.