Smithson, Peter Denham

▪ 2004

      British architect (b. Sept. 18, 1923, Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, Eng.—d. March 3, 2003, London, Eng.), with his wife, Alison, was among the foremost proponents of the New Brutalism style of architecture, which stressed a new respect for the functionality of materials. Smithson met fellow architecture student Alison Gill at the University of Durham; they were married in 1949. The newly created Smithson team vaulted to fame when they won a design competition for the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School in 1950; the steel-and-glass structure, built around a series of small courtyards and completely without corridors, was completed in 1954. The proposed Smithson design for rebuilding Coventry Cathedral, though never realized, was much admired. Perhaps the most successful of the Smithson team's buildings was the Economist Building Group in St. James's, Westminster, in London (completed 1964), a miniaturized high-rise complex integrated into the fabric of the surrounding neighbourhood. The Smithsons were as well known for their theories and unbuilt designs as for their relatively few realized projects. In 1956–68 they were members of the neo-avant-garde group Team X. A monograph of the Smithsons' life work, The Charged Void, was published in 2001.

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