In 1958, the architects Alison and Peter Smithson bought a derelict cottage on the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, southwest England. Over the next four years they transformed it into a country home for their young family and an extended experiment in the methods and materials that would shape their practice; a pavilion drawing on the tradition of the English folly, known as Upper Lawn or the Solar Pavilion. Retaining the cottage’s original stone walls and one of its chimneys, the Smithsons built what they described as ‘a simple climate house’: two open floors looking over the hills and valleys of Fonthill, where life could be lived simply and in consonance with the fluctuations of weather and seasons. The innovations developed in this private and modest home would feed into large-scale projects, such as Robin Hood Gardens housing estate, for which the Smithsons would become renowned.
