Hailed by the poet and architectural historian Sir John Betjeman as "a genius at photography", Edwin Smith (1912-1971) was one of Britain's finest photographers, noted especially for his sensitive evocations of place. The recurrent themes of his work - a concern for the fragility of the environment; an acute appreciation of the need to combat cultural standardization by safeguardiing regional diversity; and a conviction that architecture should be rooted in time and place - are as pressing today as when Smith first framed then in his elegant compositions.

Smith's archive of 60,000 images and their copyright are now held by the RIBA Library Photographs Collection.

All of the images are available for reproduction or as display prints exclusively from the RIBA Library Photographs Collection. Please email photo@inst.riba.org for details.