Economist Building

The most famous building of the English couple Alison and Peter Smithson is the headquarters of the media company The Economist. The company has been publishing a weekly magazine of the same name since 1843. Alison and Peter Smithson were members of the avant-garde movement Independent Group (1952-1955). Along with photographer Nigel Henderson and artist Eduardo Paolozzi, they engaged in work that negated the boundaries of individual artistic professions. They presented their manifesto through the exhibition project Parallel of Art and Life, which premiered at the respected ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts, London). The second reaction of the movement was the exhibition This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery (reconstruction by Robbrecht en Daem architecten). In 1953, they founded the movement Team 10 as a counter-reaction to the CIAM organization.

The term brutalism, with which the duo is associated, arose from a spontaneous play on words: Brutus (Peter's nickname during his architecture studies), to which the name Alison was added (Brutus + Alison = Brutalism). The term was first used by Reyner Banham, a theorist and close friend of the architects, in an article for the Architectural Review in 1955. Based on the positive response brought to them by the realization of the Hunstanton School building in Norfolk, the media company commissioned them in 1959 to develop a design for a representative London headquarters in the Piccadilly area. The utopian vision that fueled the couple's potential was given the green light. The design was developed with the assistance of representatives from The Economist. The proposal disrupted the homogeneity of the area dominated by 18th-century architecture. The architects solved the task by placing a micro-urban space (piazza) into the urban structure, composed of three hierarchically arranged buildings. A 17, 8, and 4-story building complemented the existing bank building.

The sterile micro-space of the inner courtyard is ascribed equal value to the buildings themselves. Below its level is an underground parking garage accessible from the rear. The courtyard space is connected to the lower level of the sidewalk by stairs. The base of the high-rise building features an open arcade visually linked to the ground floor. In 1992, the blank northern wall was meaningfully completed with a sculpture by Angela Conner. The individual buildings have a distinct character with vertical elements. The view is dominated by the alternation of window strips and solid walls. The diagonally sloped corners of the buildings contribute to the defining character of the structure. The authors played with the visual structure of the bearing construction. Each of the buildings has a different scale of the applied grid. The roof termination of the tallest (53m) building, as well as that of its "sisters," is finished with an offset retreating mass of the highest floor. The material execution in the form of Portland marble with an original surface texture gives the space a unified character. Since 1988, the building has been listed as a historic monument. In 1999, the company Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) renovated the building. In addition to replacing control systems ensuring the operation of the building, they reconfigured the entry lobby. After more than 40 years of serving the needs of The Economist, the ground-floor spaces of the lowest building were leased to the restaurant chain Sake No Hana (interior design by Kengo Kuma).

The second London realization by the Smithsons was the housing complex Robin Hood Lane Estate, completed in 1972 in East London. Today, this revolutionary concept of social housing, which ultimately failed in practice and brought significant bitterness to the couple, touches the lucrative part of Canary Wharf and is fervently discussed in the media regarding its future.