LONDON.- The Royal Institute of British Architects presents Robin Hood Gardens: Re-Visions, an exhibition taking a fresh look at the controversial east London housing estate and its residents through photographs, documentary film, archive material and projects by diploma students at the University of Greenwich. Recent photographs by Ioana Marinescu will be displayed alongside archive images and a new documentary film by Martin Ginestie. The work of Marinescu and Ginestie gives a fresh interpretation of the formal quality of the architecture, the integration of the estate in the transformed landscape around London's docklands, and the intimate lives of its residents. The documentary film also includes interviews with architects, historians and planners.

The proposal to demolish Robin Hood Gardens (1968–72), one of the most important schemes designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, has featured prominently in the media.

This exhibition is part of a two year campaign by the Twentieth Century Society and others to achieve a sensitive refurbishment of the estate:

Autumn 2007: Twentieth Century Society requested the estate to be listed

Beginning 2008: Press campaign by Building Design magazine to save the estate begins

May 2008: First refusal to list the building


July 2008: Twentieth Century Society request a review and one is carried out
May 2009: DCMS Review results in refusal to list Robin Hood Gardens

Alison Smithson (1928-1993) and Peter Smithson (1923 - 2003) together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with New Brutalism. Their buildings include:

Smithdon High School, Hunstanton, Norfolk (1949-1954; Grade II*)
The House of the Future exhibition (at the 1956 Ideal Home Show)
The Economist Building, London (1959-1965)
Garden building, St Hilda's College, Oxford (1968)
Robin Hood Gardens housing complex, Poplar, East London (1969-1972)
Buildings at the University of Bath, including the School of Architecture and Building Engineering (1988)