Review by Choice Review
Boyer (Princeton) explores the prolific efforts of the Smithsons, groundbreaking 20th-century English architects. They met as architecture students and went on to collaborate on a few buildings and a far greater body of writing. They were active members of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) and Team 10, "a small group of architects who sought each other in aiding the development and understanding of their own individual work," as described by Alison Smithson in Team 10 Primer (1968), which she edited. The Smithsons became leaders in the so-called new brutalism movement (as exemplified in the work of Le Corbusier et al.). Boyer explores a wide range of primary sources and provides a much clearer picture than has heretofore been available of design thought in postwar England. The book is intended not just to share the Smithsons' extensive efforts, but also to put them in the context of the culture of the time. The Smithsons intended their writing to record their personal insights about design, and they never set out to influence or instruct others. The graphics of the book are appropriate for its subject: there are some color representations, but mostly black and whites, as was common to the period. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Robert Paul Meden, Marymount University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
