ABSTRACT
The chapter looks into the images created by British architects, artists, and filmmakers in the 1950s who searched for what they perceived as authentic emotional aspects that were inherent to urban life in their time. In particular it investigates the architectural representations of Alison and Peter Smithson, and the films of Free Cinema movement. The Smithsons used photographs taken by Nigel Henderson to promote their ideas on urbanism, and to criticize British reconstruction, modernist ideas of zoning, and the postwar architecture of homogenous nondescript slabs. To them, photographs of working class neighborhoods showed survival of communities, social interactions, a familiarity and openness they aspired for in their architecture. In parallel, at a time when documentary films were commanding and didactic, films made by the Free Cinema movement were personal films which aimed to authentically portray the daily lives of working class populations. By looking into the various images the chapter reflects on the gap, perhaps unavoidable, between architectural representation and its realization.
