Lutyens, Sir Edwin Landseer

Lutyens, Sir Edwin Landseer (1869–1944). English architect who embraced both classicism and Arts and Crafts ideals. Starting in 1896 with Munstead Wood (Surrey) for the gardener Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1942), Lutyens's early houses include Deanery Gardens, Sonning, Berks. (1899–1902), Tigbourne Court, Witley, Surrey (1899–1901), and Folly Farm, Sulhamstead, Berks. (1905). All demonstrate his ingenious planning and his imagination, sensitivity, and wit in the use of brick, tile, stone, and other traditional materials. In contrast, Heathcote, Ilkley (1905–7), and Gledstone Hall (1922–6), both Yorkshire houses, are grand and formal. Lutyens's commitment to classicism is best seen in such London office buildings as Britannic House (1920–4) and the Midland Bank (1924–37), and in his design for the Roman catholic cathedral, Liverpool (1929–44), whilst his free and whimsical interpretation of historical styles was finely expressed in his Viceroy's House, New Delhi (1912–31). Lutyens's Cenotaph in Whitehall (1919–20), noble though it is, lacks the eerie grandeur of his memorial to the missing of the Somme at Thiepval, near Arras, France (1927–32).

Peter Willis