Alison and Peter Smithson - Design Museum's exhibition of British architects' work - Brief Article

ArtForum, Sept, 2003 by Eric Banks

DESIGN MUSEUM

The mighty Brutalist shadow cast by Alison and Peter Smithson's best-known public works (the Economist Building, the Robin Hood Gardens) has obscured the complexity of their four-decade practice. That's the contention of this exhibition, which bookends the British architects' career by focusing on two domestic projects--the House of the Future, a model produced for the "Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition" in 1956, and the lesser-known Hexenhaus, an idiosyncratic piece by-piece redesign of a Hessian cottage begun in 1986. Through films and scale models, curators James Peto, Max Risselada, and Dirk van den Heuvel hope to throw light on a maverick, visionary body of work. The catalogue brings together essays by Risselada, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, and others. Dec. 6-Feb. 29.