Peter Smithson

…3, 2003, London) were British architects notable for their design for the Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Norfolk (1954), which is generally recognized as the first example of New Brutalism, an approach to architecture that often stressed stark presentation of materials and structure.

Peter Smithson first used the term New Brutalism in 1954 to describe the post-1930 designs of the major French architect Le Corbusier. His interpretation of the modern movement involved the use of monumental sculptural shapes and of raw, unfinished molded concrete, an approach that, in…

Secondary School, Norfolk (1949–54), by Peter and Alison Smithson. An example of what became known as the New Brutalism, this building was influenced by Mies van der Rohe. Most New Brutalist buildings, however, owed more to Le Corbusier’s late work—for example, the gray concrete masses of Denys Lasdun’s University of…