 The Sugden House, Watford (1956). Image from RIBApix. 1956 was a pivotal year for housing in Britain. As the London County Council Architects Department swung from polite Scandi modern to full on Beton Brut at the Alton West Estate, the private house also started to move towards a new architecture. Immediately post World War II, the building licences required to build new houses were hard to come by due to material shortages, but by the mid-1950s things had eased. Materials were still difficult to find but a new generation of architects were able to put their ideas into practice using found materials and war damaged sites.  The New Brutalism article, Architectural Review December 1955 The generation of architects who graduated after the war had the advantage of jobs being available at the LCC, soon to be the largest architectural organization in the world. The likes of Alison and Peter Smithson, Colin St Wilson, Stanley Amis and Bill & Gillian Howell all worked at the LCC Housing department, designing estates across the bomb-scarred capital. They would all design houses completed in 1956, using available materials to create houses in what would be called the New Brutalism. The phrase had been brought to the public's attention first by the Smithsons and then by journalist Reyner Banham in an article in the Architectural Review in December 1955, describing buildings built with available materials in a stripped down style.  A House in Soho, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, 1953. The houses designed by the architects mentioned and others in 1956, fit this early definition of Brutalism. The Smithsons, who only worked briefly at the LCC, designed a house on the outskirts of Watford for Arup engineer Derek Sugden. Built in reclaimed stock brick and featuring a tiled, cat slide roof, the house appears quite conventional for two Enfant Terribles of architecture. However, a closer look shows how the regular idea of a two storey house could be pulled into an irregular shape to fit the inhabitants requirements.  The start of Theo Crosby's house on Rutland Grove, Hammersmith, Image from the Daily Telegraph. The duo had designed an unbuilt house for themselves in Soho in 1953, a four storey house in brick, timber and concrete fitted into a bomb damaged terrace. Although it did not come to fruition, it would provide a blueprint for them and others over the next decade and beyond. Friend of the Smithsons, designer Theo Crosby rebuilt a former stables on Rutland Grove in Hammersmith, first creating a studio and then a family home that he would extend through to the mid-1960s, through ad hoc extensions and intervention using materials borrowed, begged and bought. Elsewhere, perhaps less noisily, others trod the same path as the Smithsons. In Hereford Square, South Kensington, Colin St John Wilson and Arthur Baker designed an uncompromising extension to a Victorian terrace in brick and exposed concrete. The new buildings replaced a bombed section of houses, but instead of copying the destroyed stucco houses, Wilson and Baker designed a five storey section of flats and maisonettes in brick with an exposed concrete frame. The building was Grade II listed in 2007, but this recognition was withdrawn and in November 2008 the listing was withdrawn, and the 1956 building was demolished.  The interior of one the houses on South Hill Park. Image from RIBApix. On South Hill Park in Hampstead, Stanley Amis and Bill & Gillian Howell designed a small terrace of homes on the Victorian-era street that had also been damaged by bombing in World War II. The architects met whilst working for the LCC, where they were part of the Alton West design team. They formed a small housing association with friends who were looking for homes in London, designing six houses of four storeys, built in Felton brick, concrete and timber joinery. Each house was given variations to fit in with the needs of the occupying family.  Erno Goldfinger's sketch of his design at 10 Regents Park Road. On the same road, architect Erno Goldfinger designed a house for architectural historian John Summerson in 1948, but it was not built. However, Goldfinger did complete a scheme in 1956 using a similar housing association model to the South Hill Park terrace. 10 Regents Park Road is a block of flats built with an exposed concrete frame, finished with wire brushing, brick infill and timber cladding. The design signposts a change in Goldfingers designs, away from his early small scale international modernist buildings towards the larger more monumental works of his later career.  The caretakers house at Bousfield Primary School by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. Image from RIBApix. Two other projects from 1956 designed by partnerships that would be better known for the larger, later projects can be found in Kensington and on the Isle of Wight. Bousfield Primary School in Earl’s Court was designed by Chamberlain Powell and Bon, first known for the Golden Lane Estate and later for the Barbican. As part of the school scheme, they designed a caretaker's house in brick with large horizontal windows, a miniature version of the style employed for the school buildings. In Cowes on the Isle of Wight, James Gowan and James Stirling designed a thoroughly modernist bungalow in light brick, concrete blocks and timber doors and windows, laid on a ten foot grid. The bungalow has now been altered, including having a pitched roof added. Their project at Ham Common, Langham House Close, built with a forceful exposed concrete frame and other brutalist touches, would be completed the following year.  A drawing of the house in the Isle of Wight, designed by Gowan and Stirling. However, the most popular home of 1956 would be found on the other side of Ham Common,more influenced by Scandinavian modernism than the Beton Brut. The Span home was developed by Eric Lyons and Partners, and consisted of small, flat roofed tile hung homes as seen on the Span estate at Parkleys, Ham Common near Richmond upon Thames. Parkleys would prove to be the first large estate by Span, and many others would follow over the next three decades, with developments built all over suburban London and the south east of England. Their design would also prove popular with other speculative house builders like Wates and Wimpey, who would provide their own version of the Span home all over the country.
1956 saw an outbreak of houses showing the influence of brutalism and its creed of truth to materials, reflected in their unvarnished finishes and use of found materials. While a few have been altered or demolished,most have stood the test of time, and in some cases are listed, reminders of the origins of brutalism.
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