In lecture class this week, we watched a film called “The Smithsons on Housing” which was a BBC documentary that followed their designing and construction of Robin Hood Gardens. It was filmed in 1970 in London where this housing complex was built. The complex has since been at least partially demolished as you can see in this video by Dezeen. The designers of the buildings were architects Alison and Peter Smithson who admitted in a BBC interview in the 1990s that the building was not as successful as they would have liked it to be. In the original BBC film that the project was meant to be a model of a new mode of organization offering new life. They did mention that there was a possibility it wouldn’t be successful but they did take many factors into account. The Smithson’s spent a lot of time and energy organizing the buildings and elements of the complex in order to combat noise pollution. They wanted to combat traffic, noise, and vandalism, among other things. They wanted to create a quiet, more humane living environment and mentioned in the film how architects wish people would behave more thoughtfully. This may have been one of their downfalls, restricting the living style of the people too much. In the 1990s interview Peter Smithson said, “In other places you see doors painted and pot plants outside houses, the minor arts of occupation, which keep the place alive. In Robin Hood you don’t see this because if someone were to put anything out it people will break it.” It seems to me that the architects’ reservations about the project while building it were right. They had a good idea of combatting noise and traffic but perhaps they misunderstood the consumer. The Smithsons said this form of residential living was to respond to the way people wanted to live in London, but as time has passed we see that is not true.
