Smithson, Alison (1928–1993)

views updated

Smithson, Alison (1928–1993)

British architect. Born June 22, 1928, in Sheffield, England; died Aug 16, 1993, in London, England; studied at Edinburgh and Durham universities; m. Peter Smithson, 1949; children: 3.

Set up architecture practice with husband in London and co-founded Independent Group; with husband, designed Hunstanton Secondary School, Norfolk (1949–54), Economist Building, London (1964), and housing complex at Robin Hood Gardens, London (1972). With husband, wrote works on architecture, including Urban Structuring (1967), Without Rhetoric (1974), The Shift (1983), Changing the Art of Inhabitation (1994), and The Charged Void-Architecture (2001); also wrote novel, Portrait of the Female Mind as a Young Girl (1966).