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16 April 2021

With great generosity Alison and Peter Smithson's children have uploaded Walks Within the Walls as a free pdf here. Because Peter Smithson was not so interested in the artisan housing which Adam Fergusson's The Sack of Bath attempted to save only seven years later, almost everything in the five Walks remains un-wrecked. And we still have the paradox of the Smithsons' architectural style being both Brutal-ist and Bath-ist, but that is a conundrum for architectural historians to explain. For now, one of the streets which is in fact ignored by Smithson (he goes up Miles's Buildings and along Alfred Street instead of going past 'us') is Edgar Buildings (seen here in 1910 looking along to Prince's Buildings). This is where Persephone Books will be found from May 4th.

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