So, I though, and finally came around, to starting a little series on my favourite architects, my heroes, so to speak. This is the very first piece, and there will be many more to come.
The Smithsons are probably my first architectural love-affair. In the first year of uni, I briefly had a thing with Mies, but that went away rather quickly, because Mies is bit of a craftsman-builder. I mean, he built, and all of it great, but apart from that…
I don’t know how I came across the Smithsons, it must have been reading, though when I contemplate it, their secondary school is something that I remember seeing a picture of when I was still in high school.
The work of Alison and Peter Smithson (that’s right, they were married) will, to someone with little architectural background, seem ugly, disturbing, grim, flawed and some might even say brutal. That last one would actually be correct, the Smithsons helped launch a movement called “the New Brutalism”, which they described as ‘having nothing to do with craft, but with peasant dwelling forms’ and ‘architecture is the direct result of a way of life’. Those of you who wonder what this would look like need think of exposure of elements, material, structure, etc. This, however would be missing the point. The brutalist tried to capture the “-ness” of life, times, environment and, yes, the materials.
But the Smithsons’ buildings cannot be understood without reading. The Smithsons have produced more writing than building, and rather than writing about how to make good (-looking) buildings, they wrote of how the society evolves, becomes more mobile, how the city needs to adapt, how humans need new structures in their lives as the existing ones cannot fulfill their function properly anymore. About how the welfare state frees and ultimately enslaves the individual, about how cities grow and how they always respect the site where their designs stand (opposing the notion of tabula rasa).
Here, I will show pictures of four of their projects. The first one, the Modern Secondary School in Hunstanton (1949-1954). All the materials and fittings were exposed. The water tanks, usually hidden, were emphasized by making a water tower. A brutalist way of doing Mies… BTW; it’s listed.
Photo by Xavier de Jauréguiberry, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/25831000@N08/3007464931/in/photostream/
After their initial success, they became involved in CIAM (International Congress of Modern Architecture), which they helped to disband, and with some new friends (whom they met at CIAM meetings), they formed an informal group called Team 10. Team 10 discussed the problems and soluyions for contemporary architecture. Team 10 formed in 1955 and effectively ceased after 1981.
In 1960, they received another major commission, this time for he Economist building in London. They did a fine job, and it turned out to be one of the few buildings that people other than architects actually liked. You can do the research on the internet yourself.
Another building, which is not as famous, but which should be mentioned is the Garden Pavilion in Oxford (1967). Even though it’s brutalist, it looks great with all the greenery around it. Just as the moderns have always intended. Someone once commented that it looks OK now that there’s a big tree in the way, but beware! The tree was always there, even before the garden pavilion was built. This shows the respect that the architects gave the site, and is one of the basic principles of brutalism, using “found objects”.
Another building, this time unloved, is the Robin Hood Gardens (1972) complex. The intention was to create a quiet, stress-free zone where the inhabitants would meet and relax and where children could play. The flats were reached by wide access galleries, aka “streets-in-the-sky/air”. This was meant to provide a new space for encounters and encourage neighborly behavior. Due to poor construction, choice of materials and choice of tenants, the utopia of tomorrow became the dystopia of today. Look at it and you’ll know why.
Photo by joseph beuys hat, http://www.flickr.com/photos/joseph_beuys_hat/108684621/in/set-72057594076169228/
In the 1980s, the Smithsons expanded their writing and teaching activities. They developed their ideas and received some commissions by the Bath university. Their last realized project was re-building of a house for a rich German client (1986-2001). This house, known as Hexenhaus, is their most soft and humane, but nonetheless radical and modern work. It contemplates man’s (and his cat’s) place in the nature, and the notion of openness and protection.
The Smithsons can be despised for just one thing: ugly buildings. This is a subjective comment, but what no-one can deny is the firmness of their conviction, their intellectual avant-gardist position, their consistence and their dedication to the Modern Movement. These were e architects who launched Britain, for better of for worse, fully into the modern era. Their ideas, opinions and projects are still relevant, even if we sometimes use them as ‘this-is-how-things-should-not-be-done’ example. Their little things are the big things.
So, if you are interested, intrigued or disgusted, but you still want to know more (like I did), just google these projects:
The Coventry Cathedral Competition (1951)
The House of the Future (1956)
The Sugden House (1956)
The Upper Lawn Pavilion at Fonthill (own holiday retreat)
For those with really strong stomachs Look up the Berlin Haupstadt competition entry (1958) and the Kuwait Mat Building Proposal (1968-72).
If you get a chance, go to your local library and see whether they have the book “Peter Smithson: Conversations with Students” . There is a lovely project in there called the Put-Away Villa.
If you find the English brutalists as grim and sombre as their ‘monstrous carbuncles’, join me next time, I’ll do a smaller piece on the Charles and Ray Eames who worked in sunny California.
Peace out!
Peter
Posted by petersmisek 
Posted by petersmisek 
Posted by petersmisek 
