ABSTRACT
Alison and Peter Smithson (A+PS) are unusual in that they have produced seminal work in all three of the classic grounds of ‘high’ architectural output: exhibitions, books and, of course, their relatively few but hugely influential and often controversial buildings. The close but varied relationship between their books, exhibitions and their built work has been much debated. For example, their Brutalist housing scheme in London’s East End, Robin Hood Gardens, was criticised for failing to meet their own criteria for urban patterns of connections; while their attempts to define in their writing a ‘a canon of conglomerate ordering’, then expressed in their buildings at Bath University, was deemed as meeting their written criteria but failing to meet the architectural standards of their other projects. (‘Time will tell,’ says Peter Smithson.) Despite such criticism – indeed, perhaps because of their uncompromising attempts to express and pursue their ideas and beliefs – they remain among the most respected of all UK architects. Kester Rattenbury asked Peter Smithson about the interaction of the different components of their architectural work.
