

The Economist Building
(Sketches by Mark Ellery)
Don’t worry readers, this won’t be an excerpt from my dissertation, I’m not going to drone on about concrete megastructures or the brilliance of a slab block building in south London!
I went to a talk by the Royal Academy of Arts this evening, it was quite thought provoking. The lecture was titled “The Architects Who Made London”, chaired by Maxwell Hutchkinson it was about Alison and Peter Smithson, by Max Risselada.
Max began slightly brokenly, some of his sentences were disjointed, but I noticed that this made me hang on his every word – I had to concentrate quite hard, though his English was good, some ways of using words was not common in normal English conversation.
He talked from a very personal point of view about the Smithsons, and I gather that he knew them well. As far as I know the Smithsons were from the North, possibly even residing in the countryside. They travelled down to London and while young managed to get a job at the biggest and best architectural practice at that time – The LCC.
Attributed with the official “first Brutalist Building” the Smithson’s built projects were far and few between, the odd thing being there were all vastly different! They designed Hunstanton School; a small private country house, rather like a two story cottage; The Economist Building; and Robin Hood Gardens.
The later two are the ones I am interested in.


The Economist Building
Alison was the brains, the thinker, the researcher, Peter put ideas into practice. He also taught at the AA.
The Smithsons had a saying ~
“We see architecture as a direct result of a way of life”
This struck a chord with me If I design a building for how PEOPLE live NOW then surely that is all that architecture is for. Architecture is not about creating a tribute to the past, or guessing and second guessing about the future. It is about here, now, living… in HOUSES…
(Also see my previous blog about life, homes, and cities).
Of course, you will notice I am referring to my previous articles and my current themes for my regular Monday blogs – housing and the recession.
Robin Hood Gardens was originally conceived as one long building, but the study of the site revealed that two shorter slab blocks would work better – providing a safe haven in the centre. The strategy for preventing noise from two busy roads was explained during the talk – the solution the Smithsons had used seemed commendable.
But this blog is not about Robin Hood Gardens, don’t worry, I told you at the start I would not bore you with dry facts that should be kept for my dissertation.
This blog is about the Smithsons – as PEOPLE.
*They were alternative.
*They might have had socialist ideas in the backs of their minds.
*Alison was one of the first famous female architects, she challenged sexism.
*They were not elitist like many others in their institution.
The Smithsons were the ‘John Peel’ of Architecture…
They had an aura about them that said “we know something you don’t know, we know about something new in architecture… we know a secret…
And if you had the opportunity to talk to them you would probably have been drawn to them, inspired by them to work harder, research longer and learn that secret.
It could be said that they never had “repeat clients” or built many projects because they wanted to spend all of their time and resources on ONE project only. They never ran multiple jobs in their office, and it definitely was not big. In those days an office of more than 35 or 36 people was deemed to be unacceptable – the whole team would simply not be in touch with the project. The project needed a care and attention that a big office could not provide, and The Economist is testament to this. The detailing is of the steel joints with the stone is impressive and apparently there were great debates about the type, colour and feel of the internal door handles. This was not an office orientated by money.

Stone Detail
The Smithsons have always been heavily criticised, often by people who feel threatened by them, or don’t understand them. It is fair to say the Smithsons don’t have many built projects, but this is not the be all and end all – they were heavily interested in education, research, and furthering architecture. Alison studied and researched, Peter taught – they were the ultimate architectural combination. As a couple, they pushed architecture forwards, but what about people? Did they create spaces that can be well used by people, did they responsibly design a housing estate that could be maintained well, were they in touch with society? They have definitely been criticised for all manner of different things, but I would say the only thing that they are FAIRLY criticised for is their lack of feeling for people. What was their relationship like, apparently they never argued, were they loving or was it more like a business relationship? Some how, somewhere, something tells me they were not in touch with “normal” humans. Were they a classic example of “architects vs humans?”…

All Images, Models and Photographs by Mark Ellery
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