A Hotchpotch Series of Ad Hoc Solutions: Encountering Theo Crosby’s Hammersmith House

Abstract

This article tells the story of the New Brutalist house that Theo Crosby designed in Hammersmith, London. This act of storytelling uses historical and architectural methods (archives, measured drawings and models, oral histories, interviews) to document and understand the house’s development from its original conversion from a stable in 1956 to when Crosby’s first wife, Anne, moved out in 2019. By describing how the house responded to changes in the family’s circumstances over the years, I emphasise the everyday relationship between the family and the house: the role that the house played as a proxy and mediator for the unsaid and unsayable, as well as the role that the family played in its ongoing design and production. In this way, the essay situates the house within architectural history and argues that when New Brutalism — a movement that Crosby helped launch in the 1950s — is considered ‘the direct result of a way of life’ (Smithson, Smithson, and Crosby 1955: 1), it continues to offer lessons to understanding architecture beyond the aesthetic, without denying the potency of the aesthetic itself. The contribution is therefore a more nuanced understanding of New Brutalism and the enigmatic behind-the-scenes architect Theo Crosby, as well as a detailed analysis and documentation of this early example of the movement through a personal encounter.