Towards an industrial architecture: The influence of the 1956 article But today we collect ads on Alison and Peter Smithson's postwar domestic architecture

Abstract

Ablinger works are played with many different formats, including concerts, installations, performances, operas for natural and urban environments, conceptual music, etc. In June 1955, architects Alison and Peter Smithson wrote a first draft of what a few months later, in November 1956 and in issue 18 of ARK magazine, would become their famous article But Today we Collect Ads. Understood by many authors as a manifesto in favor of a new pop architecture, indebted to the recent fascination of the world of culture with post-war consumer objects, But Today we Collect Ads was to be, however, the first plea made by the Smithson in favor of a truly industrialized architecture. Thus, this article, which complements its text with the publication of the original typescripts of the article, seeks not only to emphasize its importance in the work of its authors, but also to bring to debate the widely assumed certainty that the Modern Movement was a profoundly industrialized movement.En junio del año 1955 los arquitectos Alison y Peter Smithson escribían un primer borrador de lo que pocos meses más tarde, en noviembre de 1956 y de la mano del número 18 de la revista ARK, se convertiría en su célebre artículo But Today we Collect Ads. Comprendido por muchos autores como el manifiesto a favor de una nueva arquitectura pop, deudora de la reciente fascinación del mundo de la cultura por los objetos de consumo de la posguerra, But Today we Collect Ads iba a significar, sin embargo, el primer alegato realizado por los Smithson a favor de una arquitectura verdaderamente industrializada. Así este artículo, que complementa su texto con la publicación de los mecanografiados originales del artículo, busca no solo acentuar la importancia que este tuvo en la obra de sus autores, sino llevar a debate la certeza ampliamente asumida de que el Movimiento Moderno fue un movimiento profundamente industrializado.