The Smithsons first came to prominence with
Hunstanton School,
Norfolk by winning the design competition in 1950. At that time Peter was only 26 while Alison was 21 and they had just graduated from Durham University. The school was completed in 1954, which used some of the language of high modernist
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe but in a stripped back way, with rough finishes and a deliberate lack of refinement that kept architectural structure and services exposed. They are arguably among the leaders of the British school of
New Brutalism. They referred to New Brutalism as "an ethic, not an aesthetic". It was a "brute" injunction to social relevance, "an attempt to be objective about 'reality'", its aim to "drag a rough poetry out of the confused and powerful forces which are at work". Their work sought to connect architecture with what they viewed as the realities of modern life in post-war Britain. Their definitions and interpretation of Brutalism put them at odds with their contemporary
Reyner Banham, an architecture critic known for his work in defining the stylistic components of New Brutalism. Alison Smithson articulated their desire to connect building, users, and site when, describing architecture as an act of "form-giving", she noted: "My act of form-giving has to invite the occupiers to add their intangible quality of use." As such, they turned against the formal unity of classical proportion and symmetry, governed by principles of geometry, to instead fashion architecture on the topological principle of "form in process" or "deforming form," governed by qualities of circulation, penetration, and thresholds, as most especially evident in their Robin Hood Gardens scheme. After the critical success of Hunstanton School, they were associated with
Team X and its 1953 revolt against old
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) philosophies of high modernism. Among their early contributions were '
streets in the sky' in which traffic and pedestrian circulation were rigorously separated, a theme popular in the 1960s, yet coined by the Smithsons in 1952 with their
Golden Lane Estate competition entry. The Smithsons described places where "two women with prams can stop and talk without blocking the flow, and [these streets] are safe for small children, as the only wheeled vehicles allowed are the tradesmen's hand- and electrically propelled trolleys." This exemplified the use of the human figure in relation to scale, to better understand the visual representation of an unbuilt architecture. Another contribution of theirs was the "doorstep philosophy" which described that space at the entrance of a home "that provides tranquility for children's play." They were members of the
Independent Group participating in the 1953
Parallel of Life and Art exhibition at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts and
This Is Tomorrow in 1956. Throughout their career they published their work energetically, including their several unbuilt schemes, giving them a profile, at least among other architects, out of proportion to their relatively modest output. Peter Smithson's teaching activity included participation for many years at the
ILAUD workshops, together with fellow architect
Giancarlo De Carlo.
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C467/24) with Peter Smithson in 1997 for its Architects Lives' collection held by the British Library. ==Built projects==