The Charged Void

Alison and Peter Smithson, founders of Team X and authors of the classic Team X Primer, are among the most influential architects of the postwar decades. Their reevaluation of modernism shifted the focus of architecture and urbanism toward the particularities and uniqueness of human associations, urban patterns, and climatic conditions. Many of their ideas, both social (cluster and human association) and architectural (Brutalism, the nature of materials), profoundly influenced later generations of academics, students, and practitioners. As the social ideals of earlier times become an integral part of the reassessment of the built environment of recent years, the Smithsons continue to gain in significance. This unprecedented and long-overdue publication is the first comprehensive book available on the enormous legacy of the Smithsons. The architectural works in this book, which span from the mid-1940s to the mid-1990s, include all of their major projects, such as Hunstanton Secondary School, Golden Lane Housing, Sheffield University, the Economist Building, and the "House of the Future." Introductions to groups of projects highlight the Smithsons' ongoing areas of inquiry; each project is accompanied by an original text, photographs, drawings, and plans. The rich and careful documentation on each project ensures that this volume will record the work of these important architects for posterity.