ALISON and PETER SMITHSON - The Shifts of Ideas from
the Golden Lane Proposal to the Robin Hood Gardens (1952-1972)
Liran Malka
April 2014
Fig 1: Alison and Peter Smithsons, Photographer:
Godfrey Argent, 1969
Alison and Peter Smithson met each other at
the school of architecture in Durham Univer-
sity, Newcastle in the late 40s, in 1949 they
got married, and after winning a competition
to design Hunstanton School in 1950 they
started their own practice. As soon as they
finished the school they began to show shift
in their thinking, moving from modernism to
new brutalism In early 50s, Alison and Peter
Smithsons provoke and criticize the founders
of CIAMs Athens Charter and in particu-
lar Le Corbusiers Unite dHabitation. In the
late 60s they designed their own real estate
project, the Robin Hood Gardens. Compare
their initial ideas with their later built project
shows great shifts in the way that their in-
tentions took shape. This essay is an attempt
to track those shifts, the shifts that maybe
eventually led the Robin Hood Gardens to fail.
AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka
INTRODUCTION
In 1918 the World War I has ended and an
era of restlessness has begun. The Western
World was agitated by the economic de-
pression and the land was ready for planting
new architectural ideas. Fast growth of cities
including: industrialization, pollution, demand
for housing and infrastructure played major
role in the emergence of the The Congresses
of Modern International Architecture (Gunay,
B. 1988). Since the first meeting of CIAM in
La Sarraz, Switzerland in 1928, It mainly dealt
with the modern problem of architecture and
in particularly post-war urbanization prob-
lems in cities. The CIAM served as a platform
for architects and city planners to discuss
and debate the problems of the 20th century.
It was founded by group of 28 architects who
organized by Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedi-
on. In 1933, in the CIAM meeting in Athens,
Le Corbusier published an urban planning
document which was called the Athens
Charter. This document was based upon Le
Corbusiers Ville Radieuse book and 33 ur-
ban studies made by CIAM members. Those
studies analyzed cities in a rational approach
and led to the development of the Functional
City concept.
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THE STREETS IN THE AIR
It was Le Corbusier who heavily criticized
the tradition street of the 19th century and
was determined to find the new modern
expression of the street (Avermaete, 2013).
In sketches for Unite dhabitation Le Corbus-
ier also criticize the lack of public space and
streets in the urban model of spread private
houses along main road in a rural area. The
Athens Charter from CIAM 1933 even stated:
houses will no longer be soldered to the
street by pavement. In the Unit dHabitation
Le Corbusier proposed a new model that is
somewhere between the traditional street and
the dispersed town. His new model includes
three layers of public space (fig 2): the first,
on ground level offers continuation to the
vast open landscape, the second located
between the apartments and forms the inter-
nal streets, and the last is the roof that now
offers all intensive leisure opportunities like:
sports, recreation and even place for small
cultural events. The second layer is where Le
Corbusier first presenting the modern streets
in the air. The 7th floors street becomes a
symbol of a new era, a radical and power-
ful vision for the future. In this double floor
height he placed benches, lights and a series
of shops that creates the sensation of a con-
tiguous street, raised in the air.
From CIAM 6 (1947) Aldo Van Eyck and
Alison and Peter Smithson criticized the
approach of the CIAMs founders. They held
the opinion that architecture should not only
be efficient but also give answer to emotion-
al human aspects. Whereas the modernists
looked for the role of art in architecture,
Aldo Van Eyck and the Smithsons seen ar-
chitecture as a form of art (Curro, 2010).
They understood the limitation of rationalistic
AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka
approach with lack of aesthetics or identity,
when asked about it, said Aldo van Eyck:
The old struggle between imagination and
common sense ended tragically in favor of
the later . Following this criticism, in July
1953, at the 9th congress of CIAM, Team 10
assembled for the first time. Team 10 made
a schism in CIAM by criticize and challenge
their approach to urbanism. Aldo Van Eyck
and the Smithsons were among the most
active members of the group. The first official
meeting of the group under the name Team
10 took place in Bagnols-Sur-Ceze in 1960;
a year after the last meeting of CIAM. The
young generation was not against function-
alism but they were against diagrammatic
separation of functions that creates mechani-
cal environment that with lack of zeitgeist.
Fig 2: Handsketch section for the Unite dHabitaion,
Le Corbusier, 1945
COLABORTATION
In early 50s the Smithsons met the pho-
tographer Nigel Henderson and the sculptor
Eduardo Paolozzi at London Institute of con-
temporary arts. Together they formed the
Independent Group, an informal group of
young provocative artists. In the early 50s
the Smithsons, Henderson and Paopozzi
visited the neighborhoods of Bethnal Green,
2
Henderson resided in the neighbor because
his wife participated in a sociological project
called: Discover your Neighbor to survey
the lives of the working class. Together, the
group re-discovered the street, they saw kids
playing and drawing on the street, sights that
were missing in the Functional City visions
of Le Corbusier and other founders of CIAM.
Fig 3: Alison and Peter Smithson with Nigel Hender-
son and Eduardo Paolozzi in London, This is Tomor-
row hexabition, photographer: Nigel Henderson,
1956.
THE AS FOUND CONCEPT
From the collaboration and work with Hen-
derson and Paolozzi the Smithsons devel-
oped their innovative aesthetics approach: the
As Found aesthetics. In 1990 the Smithsons
said: In architecture, the as found aes-
thetic was something we thought we named
in the early 50s when we first knew Nigel
Henderson and saw in his photographs a
perceptive recognition of the actuality around
his house in Bathnal Green: childrens pave-
ment play-graphics, repetition of kind in
doors used as site hoardings; the items in
the detritus on bombed sites, such as the
old boot, heaps of nails, fragments of sack
or mesh and so on (Heuvel 2002). The
Smithsons wider defined the as found as
AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka
taking in consideration all those marks that
constitute remembrances in a place and that
are to be read through finding out how the
existing built fabric of the place had come to
be as it is. Later they stated: the as found
was a new seeing of the ordinary, openness
as to how prosaic things could re-energies
our inventive activity. The as found concept
was part of the Smithsons attempt to find the
sense of identity in future planning.
Fig 4: Golden Lane City, Alison and Peter Smithsons,
Works and Projects, 1952.
THE GOLDEN LANE
In 1953 Alison and Peter Smithson present-
ed their entry for the Golden Lane bombed
neighborhood at the ninth congress of CIAM.
By presenting their entry, the Smithsons criti-
cized CIAM modern typology and in particular
the Unite dHabitation (Avermaete, 2013).
In the entry the Smithsons define their own:
Street in the Air, wider, open to its surround-
ings and successive. Their street gives more
privacy to its soldered dwelling by making
small gestures at the apartments entranc-
es, unlike the Unites abrupt transition. They
offer contiguous network or as they define: a
3
cluster of streets which creates a new urban
structure that connects to the existing, unlike
in the Unite dHabitation where the streets are
isolated corridors in within the building.
Moreover, their entry criticizes Londons
socioeconomic division into separated neigh-
borhoods. Therefore, in their photomontage
(fig 4) the Smithsons draw their modernist
design on the existing urban fabric just like
kids after being inspired from Paolozzis
child-like drawing. They drew their new de-
sign without removing the identity traces of
the bombed area, with a transparent faade
that allows the viewer to see the existing city,
with correlation to their as found concept.
They believe that combining old and new will
create the new form of collectiveness and
public realm. Gerard Philipe, a famous French
actor, is placed in front of their photomontage
(fig 5), Philipe rocketed to fame as a result
of his performance in Claude Autant-Laras
Devil in the Flesh (1947). In sum, the movie
is about a young man seduces an older wom-
AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka
an while her husband is a soldier fighting at
the front during WWII. Drawing controversial
actor which stands beside low-class citizens
emphasizes their search for collectiveness,
and so share their new social vision. The
Smithsons later defined the as found con-
cept as: Where the art is in the picking up,
turning over and putting with (Heuvel,
2002). In their photomontages they picked up
the modernists idea of freestanding building,
turned it over by turning solitary building into
clusters, and finally put it together with the
post war urban fabric.
To conclude, when looking at the competi-
tion entry within the wider context of CIAM
and the IG, it seems that the Smithsons were
trying to convey a sharp massage to the
founders of CIAM and to the socity, just like
the Dadaists provoke traditional art in the
Avant-Garde movement.
Fig 5: Photomontage (with Gerard Philipe) Alison and
Peter Smithsons, Works and Projects, 1952.
4
THE ROBIN HOOD GARDEN AND THE SHIFT IN
THE SMITHSONS IDEAS
Smashed windows, graffiti, pee and even
feces in the lift are part of the Robin Hood
neighborhood everyday life. In the late 60s
A+P Smithsons designed the estate and the
construction work was completed in 1972.
In Robin Hood gardens the Smithsons got
their chance to try their as found concept
and the upgraded version of the street in the
air. Back in 1952 they used the Golden Lane
competition as a stage to show this innova-
tive idea. By comparing the images from the
Golden Lane entry and the actual Robin Hood
Garden photos we can understand how pe-
nurious their concept become when it finally
came through. It is possible to evaluate the
Robin Hood Garden by carful watch how did
they imply their two main ideas in its design:
the as found aesthetics and their upgraded
street in the air.
that create two long, linear shape blocks.
In order to allow in more southern light in
building is seven and the other ten storeys
high. The street in the sky was built in every
third floor in each block. At the edge of ev-
ery street there is a rail which made out of
concrete and milky glass. It is massive and
blocks the view from the block to the garden,
unlike in their entry, where they showed light
and transparent rail that are fully open to the
inner yard and proposed a visual communica-
tion with the as found.
Fig 6: The street in the air photomontage, The Gold-
en Lane competition entry, Alison and Peter Smith-
sons, Works and Projects, 1952.

First, in the entry the Smithsons showed a

wider streets, open to light and air (fig 6),
those streets defined by stair cases that lead
to the apartments. In Robin Hood the streets
are a lot more narrow and defined by private
doors and windows that sit directly on the
street (fig 7). These changes from the orig-
inal concept reduce the sense of privacy for
the residents and their sense of ownership
on the space. Actually the residents have no Fig 7: The Robin Hood Garden Street in the Sky
Source: Tower Hamlets local history library, 1976
rights on this corridor-like space which is not
even big enough for proper use. When asked
on the estate said Peter Smithson: In other
places you see doors painted and pot plants
outside houses, the minor arts of occupation,
which keep the place alive. In Robin Hood
you dont see this because if someone were
to put anything out it people will break it.
The Robin Hood consists of 213 apartments

AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka 5
In Robin Hood the streets in the air face the the wall intended to block to noise from the
busy roads that surround the site, where in road and offer better quality of life, whereas
the entry it faces each other and the inner in real time it contributes to the creation of
yard. Even in their section photomontage to isolated site. Furthermore, The Smithsons
the Robin Hood Gardens (fig 8) they show planned and built a grass hill in the inner yard
the streets facing to the grass hill but it faces (fig 10). The hill is two stories high and it
to the city and not to the inner garden, and so sometimes blocks the views from one build-
it still unclear what made them express vague ing to another, reducing visual communica-
and confusing intentions. In an interview for tion. The hill was not part of the Golden Lane
the BBC, the Smithsons say that they tried to entry, where they proposed to place the block
develop social control within the garden. A directly on the post-war, ruined urban fabric,
place where mothers can easily watch their and by that using the as found aesthetics
kids while playing. But unlike the entry, the to give the place a sense of identity. In her
street became more like open corridors,
exposed to crime and neglect.
Second, When in the entry they present a Fig 9: The Robin Hood Garden surrounding wall,
source: Flickrtik hartua, 2008.
network of clusters streets that connects to
the as found, here their streets are isolated
just like in the Unite which they criticized.
Robert Maxwell explains these differences by
pointing out: The two blocks do not join up,
they do not demonstrate by combining into
a larger entity the potential for a city-wide
pedestrian network. On the borders of the
site the Smithsons even designed an acoustic
wall (fig 9), preventing visual communication
to the surroundings. In the interview to the
BBC (Johnson, 1970) they will later say that
Fig 10: Plan for the The Robin Hood Garden , Alison
and Peter Smithsons, Works and Projects, 1968.
Fig 8: Section of The Robin Hood Garden, Alison and
Peter Smithsons, Works and Projects, 1968.

AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka 6
essay, writes the Swedish architect Kalle So-
derman: The public open space between the
buildings was one of those unspecified mod-
ernist wastelands (+mound) they previously
argued against. The Smithsons seemed to
have big problems letting go of the old ideas,
time and time again Le Corbusier and Ville
Radieuse haunted them. (Soderman, 2003).
In the introduction the Modernism Without
Rhetoric, Helena Webster explain that de-
spite the intellectual sophistication the final
scheme dialed as a place of human habitua-
tion (Webster, 1997). The combination of the
rough concrete and the free morphologic of
the buildings formed a ghetto of housing for
lower classes more their intention for a col-
lective hub.
the ArchDaily magazine, the journalist Sofia
Balters stated: No matter the final outcome,
Robin Hood Gardens embodies Alison and
Peter Smithsons vision for a new form of
social housing. With both successes and fail-
ures within its concrete walls, the Smithsons
radical vision will always exist within Robin
Hood Gardens. It is an undeniably important
piece of Great Britains architectural histo-
ry and a monument of British modernism.
(Balters, 2011).

CONCLUSION

To conclude, both Smithsons upgraded

streets in the air and the as found aesthet-
ics were absent in the Robin Hood Gardens.
The Barbican Center in London is a good ex-
ample of the complexity and connectivity they
probably intended to reach and Le Corbusier
Unite dHabitioan is probably a better exam-
ple of how the streets in the air come from
vision to realty. They criticized and provoked
what they could not do better out of the the-
oretical debate. Nowadays, 75% of the resi-
dents think that the estate should be demol-
ished. After a campaign to list the building as
a historical landmark supported among oth-
ers by Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers failed,
the structure was under the threat of being
demolished. In the 15th of March 2012 the
demolishing plans were finally approved as
part of farther development in the Blackwall
reach area. Nevertheless, the Robin Hood
Gardens will never lose its Importance within
the architectural history. In an article from

AR1AP030 Seminar Architectural Studies - Tutors: Negar Sanaan Bensi and Esin Komez - Liran Malka 7
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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