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Abstract
In 1952, Alison and Peter Smithson designed their Soho House in central London. Published by their housemate Theo Crosby in Architectural Design magazine, the Smithsons claimed it as the first example of the “New Brutalism,” although it remained unbuilt. At the same time, Crosby designed for himself a small studio house at Strand-on-the-Green, West London that he built but which remains unpublished, even though it shares many of the Soho House’s Brutalist characteristics. This article makes use of Rudolf Wittkower’s proportional theories – dear to New Brutalist discourse – to analyze and compare the two houses. Through analysis of the original drawings, New Brutalist discourse and the biography of its architect, the article examines Crosby’s house for the first time, contextualizes it in terms of the New Brutalist canon and considers possible reasons for its previous oversight.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, Diana Periton for her brilliant editing, Anne Massey for commenting on an early draft, Dido Crosby for help in preparing this research and article, Alan Powers for making available the transcripts of interviews that Stephen Escritt conducted and Rhona Valentine, the current owner of Crosby’s house, for allowing the author to view and measure the house.
Notes
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Crosby started as co-editor with Monica Pidgeon, but after a year his title was changed to “Technical Editor.”
2 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “House in Soho, London,” Architectural Design, December 1953: 342.
3 Ibid.
4 See, for example, accounts of this in Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,” The Architectural Review, December 1955: 357; Todd Gannon, Reyner Banham and the Paradoxes of High Tech (Los Angeles, CA: Yale University Press, 2017), 27–30; Anthony Vidler, “Another Brick in The Wall,” October 136 (Spring 2011): 110–11; and Dirk van den Heuvel, Max Risselada, and Beatriz Colomina, eds., Alison and Peter Smithson: From the House of the Future to a House of Today (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2004), 136–39.
5 Reyner Banham, The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic? (London: The Architectural Press, 1966), 19.
6 Anne Massey, “The Independent Group and Little Magazines, 1956–64,” Architecture and Culture 6, no. 1 (2018): 22; and Dirk van den Heuvel, “Alison and Peter Smithson: A Brutalist Story, Involving the House, the City and the Everyday (Plus a Couple of Other Things),” Ph.D. diss., Delft University of Technology, 2013.
7 I write “almost” because his building on the South Bank for the 1961 UIA (International Union of Architects) congress has received some attention, due more to the congress than the building.
8 Massey, “Independent Group and Little Magazines”: 22; Steve Parnell, “AR’s and AD’s Post-War Editorial Policies: The Making of Modern Architecture in Britain,” The Journal of Architecture 17, no. 5 (October 2012): 764–765; Barry Curtis, “Tomorrow,” Journal of Visual Culture 12, no. 2 (2013): 279; and Simon Sadler, “The Brutal Birth of Archigram,” in The Sixties, Twentieth Century Architecture 6 (London: Twentieth Century Society, 2002), 119–28.
9 Anne Piper, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d. Anne Piper was a writer and a friend of Crosby’s. He built his second house at the bottom of her garden.
10 Anne Crosby, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
11 Jeppe High School records state his birth date as April 3, 1923.
12 Theo Crosby, “What Is Housing?,” in Housing People, ed. Michael Lazenby (London: Ad Donker Publishers, 1977), 24.
13 William Martinson, “University of the Witwatersrand School of Architecture (Wits School),” https://www.artefacts.co.za/main/Buildings/style_det.php?styleid=299 (accessed January 12, 2019).
14 Gilbert Herbert and Mark Donchin, The Collaborators: Interactions in the Architectural Design Process (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 152.
15 Arthur Barker, “A Mediated Modern Movement: Le Corbusier, South Africa and Gabriël Fagan,” South African Journal of Art History 30, no. 4 (2015): 69.
16 Ibid., 87. For the dedication, see Willy Boesiger and Oscar Stonorov, eds., Le Corbusier – Oeuvre Complète Volume 1: 1910–1929, 18th ed. (Berlin, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015), 5–6. Of the Transvaal Architecture Group, Herbert has written that “At the core of [it] was a senior echelon: Rex Martienssen, Norman Hanson, and Gordon McIntosh” (Herbert and Donchin, Collaborators, 150).
17 See Anonymous, “The Teacher,” South African Architectural Record November (1942): 329–330. The dissertation was published posthumously as Rex Distin Martienssen, The Idea of Space in Greek Architecture: With Special Reference to the Doric Temple and its Setting (Witwatersrand University Press, 1956).
18 Anonymous, “The Faculty of Architecture 1942,” South African Architectural Record July (1942): 190.
19 Herbert and Donchin, Collaborators, 152.
20 Anne Crosby, interview by Stephen Parnell, January 13, 2011.
21 Alan Powers, “Crosby, Theo (1925–1994), Designer and Architect,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, January 1, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/54828. (accessed August 13, 2019)
22 Dido Crosby, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
23 Peter Smithson, “National Life Story Collection: Architects’ Lives. Peter Smithson (7 of 19), interview by Louise Brodie,” September 4, 1997, British Library Sound Archive, https://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Architects-Lives/021M-C0467X0024XX-0100V0 (accessed November 15, 2011).
24 Anonymous, “RMMV Warwick Castle (The Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company Ltd). List of Passengers Disembarking at Southampton,” October 11, 1947, BT 26/1230/51, The National Archives, Kew.
25 “The History of Goodenough College,” http://www.goodenough.ac.uk/about-us/history (accessed August 17, 2018). According to Goodenough’s archivist, Crosby left Goodenough on December 1, 1947. He is then listed on the electoral role as living at 156 Gloucester Place with 15 others on June 30, 1948 (Fry and Drew’s office was located at 63 Gloucester Place).
26 Box 15, Theo Crosby Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.
27 Crosby, interview by Escritt.
28 Jane Drew, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
29 Theo Crosby, “Night Thoughts of a Faded Utopia,” in The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics of Plenty (London: MIT Press, 1992), 197.
30 Monica Pidgeon, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
31 Iain Jackson and Jessica Holland, The Architecture of Edwin Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew (London: Ashgate, 2014), 120.
32 The Central School of Arts and Crafts became the Central School of Arts and Design in 1966 and in 1989 merged with Saint Martin’s School of Art to form Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design. It is now part of the University of the Arts London.
33 Drew, interview by Escritt. Crosby is listed as a MARS member on the list of members dated May 18, 1950: Ove Arup, “Mars Group: List of Members,” May 18, 1950, ArO/1/1/7, Sir Ove Arup Papers, RIBA Archives.
34 Crosby, “Night Thoughts,” 197.
35 Peter Rawstorne, “Obituary: Professor Theo Crosby”, The Independent, September 15, 1994, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-professor-theo-crosby-1448941.html (accessed August 4, 2011).
36 Theo Crosby, “Inaugural Address,” in The Royal College of Art Architecture and Interior Design (London: The Royal College of Art, 1992), 13.
37 Smithson, “National Life Story Collection.” There is a sketch of the library’s interior in Crosby’s sketchbook 7, unpaginated, dated October 1948 (Theo Crosby Archives, University of Brighton Design Archives). Although there’s no evidence that this is what influenced both men to visit Michelangelo’s masterpiece, Rudolf Wittkower had written a pioneering piece on it in 1934: Rudolf Wittkower, “Michelangelo’s Biblioteca Laurenziana,” Art Bulletin 16, no. 2 (June 1934).
38 Peter Smithson, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
39 Banham, New Brutalism, 15.
40 Anne Crosby, Matthew: A Memoir (London: Haus Books, 2009), 50.
41 On August 18, 1949. See Elain Harwood, “Smithson, Peter Denham (1923–2003), Architect, Writer, and Teacher,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, January 6, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/89834. (accessed August 13, 2019)
42 Crosby, “Night Thoughts,” 197.
43 Crosby, Matthew, 50.
44 Smithson, interview by Escritt. Martienssen wrote extensively in the SAAR, but the particular article he could have been referring to was Rex Distin Martienssen, “Some Aspects of Doric Temple Architecture,” South African Architectural Record, March 1942: 55–83.
45 Others included Anne Piper, Jane Drew, Monica Pidgeon and his second wife, artist Polly Hope.
46 Crosby, interview by Escritt. See especially sketchbook 8 in the Theo Crosby Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.
47 Reyner Banham, “Revenge of the Picturesque: English Architectural Polemics, 1945–1965,” in Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, ed. John Summerson (London: Allen Lane, 1968), 270.
48 Alison + Peter Smithson: The Shift, Architectural Monographs 7 (London: Academy Editions, 1982), 96.
49 Drew, interview by Escritt; and Denys Lasdun, interview by Stephen Escritt, n.d.
50 This unification of life and work in the Soho House was also suggested by Mark Crinson, Alison and Peter Smithson, Twentieth Century Architects (London: RIBA Publishing, 2018), 13.
51 Marthe Armitage, interview by Stephen Parnell, April 6, 2019.
52 Sketchbook 34, unpaginated, dated August 20, 1952, Theo Crosby Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.
53 Crosby, interview by Escritt.
54 Planning application number 1116/55/P1, dated February 16, 1952 and granted on April 21, 1952.
55 Planning application number 1116/55/P2, dated June 19, 1952 and granted on August 13, 1952.
56 L. L. Lasenby was Liberty Llewellyn Lasenby, whose godfather was Sir Arthur Lasenby Liberty, the founder of Liberty & Co. (Liberty’s) of London.
57 Confirmed by Marthe Armitage: Armitage, interview by Parnell.
58 Armitage left Fry and Drew in June 1952 and for India that September.
59 This arrangement of a south-facing ground floor studio leading onto the rear garden was repeated in Crosby’s next house at Hammersmith.
60 Theo Crosby to Jane Drew, November 2, 1952, Box 6 Folder F&D/6/4, Fry and Drew Archives, RIBA Archives. There is a motorbike license in Crosby’s archive dated February 2, 1953, Box 15 Theo Crosby Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.
61 “The New Empiricism: Sweden’s Latest Style,” The Architectural Review, June 1947: 199–204.
62 Park is perhaps better known for two later books that explain the design and construction of modern houses to the public. See June Park, Houses and Bungalows (London: B. T. Batsford, 1958); and June Park, Houses for Today (London: B. T. Batsford, 1971).
63 Banham, “New Brutalism”; and Banham, New Brutalism.
64 Banham, “New Brutalism,” 354.
65 Steve Parnell, “From Behind Enemy Lines,” CLOG, no. 6 (2013): 23; and Stephen Parnell, “The Brutal Myth,” Thresholds 45 (August 2017): 151–158.
66 Banham, New Brutalism, 134.
67 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “Banham’s Bumper Book on Brutalism,” Architects’ Journal, December 28, 1966: 1590. On Banham’s lack of consultation with the Smithsons, see Robin Middleton, “The New Brutalism or a Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Architectural Design, January 1967: 8; and Dirk van den Heuvel, “Between Brutalists. The Banham Hypothesis and the Smithson Way of Life,” The Journal of Architecture 20, no. 2 (April 2015): 297.
68 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “The New Brutalism: Alison and Peter Smithson Answer the Criticisms on the Opposite Page,” Architectural Design, April 1957: 113; and Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, Without Rhetoric: Architectural Aesthetic, 1955–72 (London: Latimer New Dimensions, 1973), 6.
69 Peter Smithson and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Smithson Time: A Dialogue (Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2004), 17.
70 Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson, and Theo Crosby, “The New Brutalism,” Architectural Design, January 1955: 1; and van den Heuvel, “Between Brutalists,” 299.
71 Smithson, Smithson, and Crosby, “New Brutalism,” 1.
72 Banham, “New Brutalism,” 361.
73 Smithson and Smithson, “New Brutalism,” 113. We should remember that this was also published in AD where Crosby was still Technical Editor. It is van den Heuvel who speaks of Brutalism’s “first phase.” See van den Heuvel, “Between Brutalists,” 298.
74 Smithson, Smithson, and Crosby, “New Brutalism,” 1.
75 Vidler, “Another Brick,” 106–107.
76 Smithson, interview by Escritt. Anne Crosby said that Theo “needed to feel like a bachelor” even when he was married to her: Anne Crosby, “National Life Story Collection: Artists’ Lives. Anne Buchanan Crosby (11 of 16), interview by Linda Sandino,” March 26, 2003, C466/142, British Library Sound Archive, https://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Art/021M-C0466X0142XX-0011V0 (accessed July 2, 2019).
77 Theo Crosby to Jane Drew, November 2, 1952, Box 6 Folder F&D/6/4, Fry & Drew Archives, RIBA Archives.
78 Crosby, Matthew, 51.
79 Piper, interview by Escritt; and Theo Crosby letter to Bryan Robertson, June 8, 1956, WAG/EXH/2/45/1, Whitechapel Gallery Archive.
80 Smithson and Smithson, “House in Soho,” 342.
81 Eva-Marie Neumann, “Architectural Proportion in Britain 1945–1957,” Architectural History 39 (1996): 197.
82 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells (London: John Rodker, 1931 [1923]), 67.
83 Jean-Louis Cohen, “Le Corbusier’s Modulor and the Debate on Proportion in France,” Architectural Histories 2, no. 1 (September 24, 2014): 3, https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.by (accessed August 13, 2019)
84 Neumann, “Architectural Proportion in Britain,” note 17.
85 An abridged transcript of the lecture appeared as Le Corbusier, “The Golden Section,” Architects’ Journal, January 8, 1948: 35–36.
86 Le Corbusier, Le Modulor: essai sur une mesure harmonique à l’échelle humaine applicable universellement à l’architecture et à la mécanique (Boulogne: Editions de Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1950); and Le Corbusier, The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale Universally Applicable to Architecture and Mechanics, trans. Anna Bostock and Peter de Francia (London: Faber, 1954).
87 Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (London: Alec Tiranti Ltd., 1952).
88 Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson, “Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism,” RIBA Journal, February 1952: 140, in response to A. S. G. Butler, “Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism,” RIBA Journal, December 1951: 59–60.
89 Neumann, “Architectural Proportion in Britain”; Alina A. Payne, “Rudolf Wittkower and Architectural Principles in the Age of Modernism,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 53, no. 3 (September 1994): 200; and Henry A. Millon, “Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism: Its Influence on the Development and Interpretation of Modern Architecture,” Journal of The Society of Architectural Historians 31, no. 2 (May 1972): 86.
90 For example, Manning Robertson, “The Golden Section or Golden Cut: The Mystery of Proportions in Design,” RIBA Journal, October 1948: 536–545; A. Leonard Roberts, “R’s Method: The Achievement of Proportion in Architectural Design,” Architectural Design, September 1948; Mark Hartland Thomas, “Aesthetics the Vanguard Now,” Architectural Design, February 1947: 36–37; and Colin Rowe, “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa,” The Architectural Review, March 1947: 101–104.
91 Trevor Dannatt, ed., Architects’ Year Book 5 (London: Elek Books Ltd., 1953), 7.
92 Rudolf Wittkower, “Systems of Proportion,” in ibid., 9.
93 Wittkower, Architectural Principles, 95.
94 Gannon has previously discussed the proportions of the Soho House but did not consider the root-2 rectangle. He did, however, notice that the bed in the original drawing by the Smithsons was curiously long, and on further inspection it appears to be drawn as a golden rectangle. Gannon, Reyner Banham, 29–30, 48 note 74.
95 Anne Massey, The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain 1945–59 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 80.
96 Mary Banham admitted that they must have attended some of Crosby’s parties during that time. Ben Banham email to Stephen Parnell, “Theo Crosby’s Houses,” October 23, 2018.
97 Crosby, interview by Parnell.
98 In her interview with Stephen Escritt, Anne Crosby called Theo “very new Brutalist.” Anne, interview by Escritt.
99 Louisa Hutton, “Godparents’ Gifts,” in Architecture Is Not Made with the Brain: The Labour of Alison and Peter Smithson, eds. Pamela Johnston, Rosa Ainley, and Clare Barrett (London: Architectural Association, 2005), 56.
100 Banham, New Brutalism, 135.
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Stephen Parnell
Dr Stephen Parnell is an architectural critic, historian, academic and former architect. He is currently Director of the MArch at Newcastle University where he teaches architectural history, theory and design.