Architecture, cinema, and images of childhood in 1950s Britain

Abstract

In 1956, Independent Group member Eduardo Paolozzi, close friend and collaborator of Alison and Peter Smithson, starred in the film Together, directed by Lorenza Mazzetti, who had met him while a student at the Slade School of Fine Art. Strikingly, the imagery and setting of the film shares much in common with the images used by the Smithsons in their work, particularly those by Nigel Henderson, of children playing in the East End. Together is a 52-minute film screened in 1956, as part of Free Cinema programme. East London, with its narrow streets, riversides, docks, and multiple bomb sites, as well as the manner in which this location was shot, expressed the sense of disharmony – even chaos; a scenery patched together out of the remnants of prewar daily routines; a mix of dwellings, cranes, industry, and children running among the ruins. Looking more closely at Free Cinema's use of image and at the postwar concern with childhood allows us to better understand how and why children figured in the Smithsons’ work and how they came to inspire a new creative consciousness in New Brutalism more generally.