Alison and Peter Smithson

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Peter and Alison Smithson 1990
Robin Hood Gardens residential complex, Poplar, East London, completed in 1972

Alison and Peter Smithson were British architects who formed a community of architects. They are considered to be representatives of New Brutalism (especially in architectural theory and the theory of the city ).

They met while studying architecture at Durham University and married in 1949. Together they worked for the architecture department of London County Council before setting up their own office in 1950.

Her son Simon is also an architect.

meaning

Alison and Peter Smithson are among the central architects of the British school of "New Brutalism ". They described this new direction in architecture as "an ethic, not an aesthetic" (ethics and not aesthetics). Indeed, it was her achievement to emphasize functionality and to blend architecture with the realities of modern life in post-war Britain. Alison Smithson had the idea of ​​connecting building, user and location with one another and described the architecture as an act of "shaping", she said: "My act of form-giving has to invite the occupiers to add their intangible quality of use."

Implemented projects

Garden House, St Hilda's College, Oxford (1968)
Part of the ensemble for The Economist , London

Fonts

  • Smithon and Peter Alison: The Charged Void: Architecture . Monacelli Press, New York 2001, ISBN 1-58093-050-6 .
  • Alison Margaret Smithson, Peter Smithson, Dirk van den Heuvel, Max Risselada, Beatriz Colomina: Alison and Peter Smithson: from the house of the future to a house of today . 010 Publishers, Rotterdam 2004, ISBN 90-6450-528-4 (exhibition catalog).

literature

  • Helena Webster: Modernism without rhetoric. The work of Alison and Peter Smithson . Wiley, Chichester 1998, ISBN 0-471-97759-4 .
  • Rachel Cooke: Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties . Virago 2013

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alison and Peter Smithson, Design Museum ( Memento of November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Peter & Alison Smithson - Open University
  3. bdonline.co.uk (access only possible via login)
  4. ^ Colin Davies: A New History of Modern Architecture. Laurence King Publishing, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-78627-056-6 , p. 277.
  5. Spotlight: Alison and Peter Smithson at archdaily.com, accessed February 28, 2019.
  6. ^ Ann Lee Morgan: Contemporary Architects. St. James Press, Chicago and London 1987, ISBN 0-912289-26-0 , p. 853.