J
Peter and Alison Smithson, London
58
[
' 1P|
■«h ■»I....
il
___________f
mim
1 J % ^"1
Photo Thomson Newspapers Ltd
1 We need to reverse our priorities11 The Fragmentary Utopia Introduction In practical terms an architect only begins to be effective within society when that picture of its ideal self which is distilled from the whole consciousness of society begins to take a concrete, generally accepted form.
An architect may have built in advance of this picture and so have helped to formulate it, but, until the moment of acceptance—which happens quite suddenly—he builds for himself and for the few. His work is not accessible to the many.
I believe we have passed out of the probing—initiates only—phase in England into the phase of the ‘vision accepted’. The full participation phase.
Out of the experiences of living with our postwar building efforts in England there is, I believe, a ‘vision accepted’. The last ‘vision accepted’ in England was that of the Garden City.
The experiences which formulated this ‘vision accepted’ can be separated out :
Realization 1: That ‘infill’ of new buildings into an existing town or city, or even total rebuilding on an ‘infill’ basis (i.e.
separate building by separate building), only produces a characterless jumble, even when the standard of the individual buildings is high (this is as obvious in Berlin as it is in London or Birmingham).
verve and commitment—of energy—can absorb flaws of design and building (as in Realization 1); sometimes it comes from the client ; and sometimes from the architect. The client can be a public authority (i.e. British Rail, Eastern Region), or a private company (i.e. The Economist). Somebody has to be committed to society as it is, and be prepared to act within it.
Realization 2: That when areas of an existing city have been redeveloped with the deliberate intention of making a new pattern (of open space, movement, parking, and so on), even when that area is as small as 400 x 400 yards, the gain in the sense of quality, of life style acquired, is extraordinary, and that, provided a reasonably consistent form language is maintained,
it is still something even when the standard of building (detailing, construction, finish) is low. And we have to accept that in England it is generally low. This can be observed in recent G.L.C. housing developments in London where the form language is maintained and compared with the Stag Brewery area where it is not.
J6:5 : st.
Realization 3 : That the outstanding buildings of the last twenty years have what can only be described as high intensity: in them the emotional commitment—of those involved in getting it built ‘just right’ according to some inner compulsion— communicates itself. This ‘intensity’ does not seem to result from one set of circumstances. Sometimes the will-to-getit-right comes from a builder or developer (e.g. ‘Wates Build’) where the sense of
Realization 4: That individual buildings, even those with high intensity, can easily be compromised and reduced almost to toys— made part of the usual jumble—if their specific space and connective needs are overrun by too high or too near new buildings. For a building’s meaning (its true usefulness to society) to be able to survive, a whole context needs to be established. Established and then kept as inviolable as possible, both by legal covenant and by the arrangement itself making conflicting change difficult.
Chànge of detail is not important, it is change which confuses the underlying system, and thus the meaning, of the building idea, which must be prevented.
To give the best-known example: when the Unité of Le Corbusier at Marseilles was new, it was possible to see the idea of a vertical Garden City.
Subsequent development around it has turned it back into a building. The minimum operation to establish the idea was the four Unités east of the town centre in the St-Die plan (1945) maintained by tough legal protection of the open space and the connective pattern.
59
Realization 5: That in a town or city what one is deeply aware of is quite small in area. We probably ‘know’ a number of small areas, and we transit between them in cars and public transport vehicles where our perception of that which we are passing is quite different (vide Alison Smithson, ‘A Portrait of the Female Mind as a Young Girl’1).
These small areas we know are those we are prepared to walk within. If we are prepared to walk, say, one-quarter of a mile, within a radius of one-quarter mile, then the ‘knowable areas’ are probably themselves 300 to 400 yards across (which Realization tallies with Realization 2).
Verbal Illustrations of Transit Perception p. 98-99 She thought about it on the bus to the library in the morning but got distracted by something that often did this to her. In the middle of the sootiest bit of town—where there were actually some stone houses left—a
‘Valet’
Service
was
always
catching her eye. Orange—the absolute contrast to soot dirt—jutting out at right angles to her going; it stuck out at the start of a side street untouchable by her because bus unstoppable. She liked the length of the roar of the six-wheeled diesel bus.
A
‘time’,
most comforting sound of her one she
was in communication
with—how am I riding?—nice and high
Realization 6: That as these ‘knowable areas’ are the ones we are closest to, that affect us most deeply. They therefore should be the most carefully made, with the most love and money. They are the areas around the house and working-place. Our experience of the transit lines and facilities is by contrast short in time, and we feel quite unconnected.
At present it is the transit facilities (i.e.
the new Scheepol and London Airports) that are having money poured into them.
Yet we know they are already out of date.
It is they that should be throw-away, cheaply made, casual and impermanent.
We need to reverse our priorities.
These are the realizations arising out of the actual situation in England that are moulding the general consciousness: — towards commitment above all ; — towards the making, or organizing of carefully and beautifully made, fairly large, inviolable living and work areas ; — towards more throw-away, more easily changed service areas.
too.
Another spot of colour on her route was in the junk shop among all the closed shops and derelict halls. It was a vicious yellow china stump column. One almost wanted to own it because of its imperviousness ; to it all. The pollution could not touch it, neither could she, swept past with a fullbellied tiger roar; she respected their relationship.
There is an order that the wet brings to the streets. It empties them. It puts a transparent film over all chaos. It is a promise, longstanding, that cleansing and country will one day be amongst us again.
This was her travelling on the bus, then about one-third of her life in felt time; the third somehow most in touch with what for her thrumming
must be
up filth
reality,
between
traffic
buildings.
Whether it was good to look at or not.
Fixed, barren facts.
There, behind the
window she was untouchable, she could think.
Thoughts were suggested to her, sometimes
not—but
whichever—a
comfort
when things had gone wrong that the built world was apparently unchanging ; because of the bulk of it to the eye unchangeable, even if you had pretty thoughts.
She
thought of what to do, and what made her angry, and it was action of a sort, the sort of action everyone took by complaining.
p. 234-235 Sometimes the headlight like a finger prods the
1966. published by Chatto & Witidus. London, pp. 98 and 99.
'
60
air,
the
hedge,
before
seemingly
finding the road in the black and white metal rain.
centre of a net, can go out, anywhere:
p. 273-274
places you’ve never been and haven’t a
Blue lights of dash dial floating to upper
picture of. I get a kick out of old transleftjupper right. The full reflection of dash
port ways, a kick as strong as the first
alongside car as one leaves roundabout
man: a Roman road, a line of arches,
lights.
Splashing through water in a VW, rrr, it
I want the same now. I want in amongst it
goes, all of a sudden on the bottom and
new. Flat on a bridge—because now we
The licking ribbon of black oily surface
how snug and safe you feel underneath; it's
can build it up and it won’t fall down, will
ticking away the miles under one.
such a nice car for a woman to be sitting
it?—over canals and rivers that should be
in. The watery reflection on hedges off a
cleaned out
Tick tock the cats eyes of the English centre.
and no
reason
why
not.
flooded gutter line. Headlights on mown
Wouldn’t it be better to live there instead
grass banks or close leaning clipped lanes,
of turning my skylark out of his house and
‘Long
swishing secretly by—-for you don't really
sky? I see the sunset colour the gable ends
land?—I love. ’
see as if your attention was drawn by a
of the terraces stepping down the hills
White bar/yellow bar/line.
small noise—serenely along in the blustery
making the old condemned stone beautiful.
‘Bye-bye Dolly I must leave you tho’ it
night, in this lovely little sealed can.
Pull it down : although in the centre of my
breaks my heart to go. ’
The dash dash dash.
long
road a
winding—into
the
childhood it seems now a better way of
‘No, I must keep my mind off the agony of
When she was at home the girl thought.
living in a box than any I see built about
leaving the kids. '
‘A knock at the door can bring trouble.
me.
Long white road a winding
Or a man from the Water Board.’ This
I need a break of some kind. ’
was the man from the Liberal Party.
This in deeper voice—on to .. .
Keep right on round the bend
‘TU tell my husband. I’ll give these to my
p. 243
‘Yes, Indeed.’
husband. Thank you for calling. ’
'And the boy held up his sewing and they
Root te too to Burgundy. Ro to ro to ro
She felt so sorry.
‘Politicians
are positively
horse-drawn.
Draw only from well-talked-about ideas,
laughed.’ And I did too and I said no and
te to te to lower key ro to ro to and so to
my shame was lead and the car was
Burgundy.
moving so all I could do was look about
Guillaume le Conqueror
and send my sorry winging back.
Will the Conk
so they act on what someone said about the road twenty years ago, not have an
Often we are given a sort of repairing
Our Willie of the Glasgow Herald is it?—
idea while driving. Typical only in their
chance—we recognize it and question how
anyway he ends sitting on an upturned
delightful ignorance of what is possible.
to take it—as we think, it is gone. ‘He
bucket at the bottom of his page with his
They are very literal people, you have
walked to
chin in his hand and a ruffled fed-up look.
to bang it in; men without antennae.
knowing the road looked down on us on the
Paris traffic, cheering up a bit now.
Politicians are out of date, It is too late
hairpin below. And I grasping the conBerlin.
now for amateurism ; the unskilled, just so
struction of the topography chanced a look
Athens.
inside, adoring of lovely amateurism which
up : he did not smile. As he was left I wrung
‘Here I am, in agony, yet pleased as an
smacks of what we imagine is public-
myself inside. It’s simply that you cannot
idiot to be here happy as a Zandvoort in
school doing-nothing-really. If there is to
stop as soon as you think, once the car is
stinging fresh air scenery and my kind of
be any discussion it must be serious. It is
moving. From my experience with cruelty
people. ’
the edge of the road and
a mere farce to be Minister of thisfor halfa
at the unthinking hands of other people
Then back, back. To reality.
year and Minister of that the next—barely
after my striving—I can imagine—I assure
RRRr—French small town town.
time to read the documents and meet the
you I only laughed out ofsurprise although
To market to market and home again
men—Whitehall’s treated like a Heath
I must have sworn I never would not
Robinson railway all change these weekinstantly really grasp how others felt. Now
jiggity jigThis dreaming—this movement—hard to
days. No trying to make sense for us the
through you, poor soul, I can understandabkeep with it. ‘My mind sways like a tart,
car misdriving down a Sunday street,
ly forgive much what was done to me.
like a car on English road.
honking instead of stowing at the children.
I am sorry for us all. It is not that I in the
allow beige cars, at dusk they are not safe.
us,
car cannot understand anything of you
And you
taking pieces to make rules for real. They
peasant. I do know the child physical
400 yards behind US Ford or right up the
cannot keep up.
efforts involved in your life. ‘
bum of a prewar Renault. ’
Someone
should be
looking
after
don’t
know
Shouldn’t
whether
you’re
Do they think of the bus man, walking home afterwards? In a town walking all the way out to where my skylark used to live: instead of with sky and green and trees
bringing
an
owl
to
the
depot.
Belongingness. Togetherness. It's only for American mags. Communications centre village—that could be played-up—early morning starting, night lights, men maintenancing. You, there, like a spider at the
61