Alison Smithson (22 June 1928 - 16 August 1993) and Peter Smithson (18 September 1923-3 March 2003) formed together an architectural partnership and are associated with the New Brutalism. Peter was born in Stockton-on-Tees in North-East England, Alison was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. They met and married in 1949, while studying architecture at Durham University. Together they joined the architecture department of the London County Council before establishing their own partnership in 1950.

They first came to prominence with Hunstanton School building which used some of the language of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe but in a stripped back way, with rough finishes and deliberate lack of refinement. They are arguably among the leaders of the British school of New Brutalism. They were associated with Team 10 and its 1953 revolt against old Congres International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) philosophies of high modernism.

Among their early contributions were "Streets in the Sky" a popular theme in the 1960s in which traffic and pedestrian circulation were rigorously separated. They were members of the Independent Group participating in the 1953 Parallel of Life and Art exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and This Is Tomorrow in 1956.