B.S Johnson’s 1970 BBC2 documentary ‘The Smithsons on Housing’.This documentary gi

B.S Johnson’s 1970 BBC2 documentary ‘The Smithsons on Housing’.

This documentary gives a great insight into the Smithsons views on architecture and the process and logic behind one of their only major realised buildings, the sadly soon to be demolished (I believe so anyway?) Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, East London.

The Smithsons were one of the driving forces in British Brutalism, and were very involved in the Independent Group from the start. They worked with Paolozzi and Henderson in ‘This is Tomorrow’ calling their collaborative piece 'Patio & Pavillion’, it definitely sat within the overall concept of Brutalism, well away from the retrospective idea we have of Pop Art. It also had a profound effect on a 26 year old future dystopian writer J.G Ballard who would later write about this specific part of the exhibition in his 2008 autobiography. 

In the work of the Smithsons and Brutalism in general there is a clear conflict between the utopian ideals of Modernism and the realities of modern life which 'This is Tomorrow’ so radically explored. This dichotomy really comes through in the documentary, Sukhdev Sandhu in 2009, wrote of it thusly:

“They drone in self-pitying fashion about vandals and local naysayers to such an extent that any traces of visionary utopianism are extinguished.” (via)