The heightened reputation of the AA in the second half of the 1950s owed much to the fact that it provided a home for the vanguard of British architecture, notably Peter Smithson and John Killick, at just the moment when, through their activities in CIAM and the agency of Architectural Design, they were thrust into the international limelight.
Jonathan Meades called Seifert ‘the most wrongly reviled architect of the half century’ and I would agree with that. There was a lot of negative press around Seifert and his work even when he was at the height of his powers and success. It’s taken time, or history, to see a very gradual reassessment of the work, the architect and his practice. The key buildings are gradually being listed and many are finding a new lease of life. It’s really interesting that other architects tend to be the most positive about Seifert’s work, while other commentators get too caught up with who commissioned a particular building and how it was used.
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