Born : Sheffield, June 22, 1928. Education : School of architecture, University of Durham, 1944-1949. Since 1950 partnership with Peter Smithson (London) ; associated with the Independent Group and Team 10. Died Aug. 16, 1993. The Smithsons and Team 10: the politics of the avant-garde Looking back, Alison Smithson concluded in 1991: We, Alison and Peter Smithson, needed Team 10 most." [Team 10 Meetings p11] According to her, Team 10 filled the creative gaps created by a lack of regular design commissions. The Smithsons would ultimately build very little; they developed primarily as critics and theorists. The postwar architectural climate in England was narrow and inward-looking. All efforts were focused on reconstruction and the construction of modernist New Towns. Aesthetic control and a tightly regulated planning machinery left little room for experimentation. In 1950, the Smithsons married and started their own firm. They sought a different architecture, away from well-trodden modernist formulas. They wanted a new vernacular; an architecture that matched everyday life in a modern consumer society, inspired by the fresh momentum of the modernist pioneers. To escape the stuffy architectural climate, the Smithsons constantly sought contacts with kindred spirits inside and outside architecture, inside and outside England. They were born organizers, eminently adept at the politics of the artistic avant-gardes with its group formation, rhetoric and programmatic precision. In doing so, they complemented each other perfectly: Peter was the more foregrounded turbulent idea man, brilliant speaker and writer; Alison was the quiet organizational force in the background. Initially, they primarily sought to connect with London's artistic avant-garde. From 1952 to 1955 they were members of the Independent Group, with related artists such as Henderson and Paolozzi. In addition, they were active in MARS, the English CIAM group. During CIAM 9 in Aix-en-Provence (1953), they and a number of relatives profiled themselves as representatives of the new generation, no longer content with the formalism of International Style and the bureaucracy of CIAM. A few months later, on the initiative of Jaap Bakema, this group met in Doorn (1954) to set a common course. Invited were A. van Eyck, D. van Ginkel, H. Hovens Greve, P. Smithson, J. Voelcker , G. Candilis, D. Lasdun, R. Gutmann, A. Wogenscky. A few months later, on July 1, 1954, this new generation seized power within CIAM. At a meeting of the CIAM Council, the "CIAM X Committee" was established to prepare CIAM 10. Members were J. Bakema (secretary), G. Candilis, R. Gutmann and P. Smithson. On July 29, 1954, at a meeting in London of J. Tyrwhitt, Howell and the Smithsons, the group was expanded to include A. van Eyck, W. Howell, Neuenschwander, B. Richards, Studer, J. Voelcker, S. Woods. From now on, the Smithsons would continue to play a leading role in what was soon referred to as Team 10. Whereas Bakema constantly sought compromise through a gradual transition from the old to a new CIAM, the Smithsons steered for a radical break from the beginning. They no longer wanted a large, bureaucratic organization but a small group of kindred spirits, a private "family," focused on mutual idea exchange. At CIAM 10 it was decided to establish a Committee for the Reorganization of CIAM (10/8/1956 - 1/9/1957). Members besides P. Smithson were J. Bakema, P. Emery (chairman), B. Howell, E. Rogers, A. Roth and S. Woods Finally, at a meeting of Committee, Council and delegates in La Sarraz on September 2, 1957, it was formally decided to dissolve all national CIAM groups. At Bakema's suggestion, a Coordination Group would compile a list of active individual members and prepare a subsequent Congress. CIAM was renamed "CIAM Working Group for the Formation of Social-Visual Relations" (CIAM: Research Group for Social and Visual Relationships). The Smithsons remained dissidents. They did not interfere with the organization of the official Otterlo Congress, but tried to form an alternative group, a "new Team 10." In Team 10 as it operated after Otterlo, Bakema and the Smithsons remained the driving forces. Again, the Smithsons were the ideological sharpshooters. They constantly resisted inviting "outsiders" to the meetings, and Alison in particular tried to make Team 10 a private "family." Alison also took care of reporting the often rather chaotic meetings, often omitting unwelcome expressions. In 1961 she took the initiative to publish the Team 10 Primer (1962, reissued 1968), which summarized Team 10's thinking as a collage of individual contributions. It became a bestseller among generations of architecture students. With Bakema's death in 1981, Team 10 activity came to an end. In the now following decade, Alison in particular devoted herself to the historiography of Team 10, culminating in the publication of Team 10 Meetings (Delft 1991), which recorded the history of Team 10 as seen through the eyes of the Smithsons.