Medd, Henry Alexander Nesbitt

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Medd, Henry Alexander Nesbitt (1892–1977). English architect. From 1919 he was the man on the spot in India, interpreting and adapting Herbert Baker's drawings, but in fact designing most of the details of the Secretariats and Legislative buildings in New Delhi. On his own account, as the result of wins in competitions, he designed the Anglican Church (now Cathedral) of the Redemption, New Delhi (1928–31— a masterly domed building clearly influenced partly by Lutyens's work at Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, and partly by the work of Wren), and the RC Church of the Sacred Heart, also in New Delhi (designed 1927, built 1930–4—with a twin-towered liturgical west façade, a dome over the crossing, and long side elevations with horizontals, the whole Sublimely Lutyensesque). Medd also designed the High Court building at Nagpur (1935–42—in a style very similar to that of Lutyens's Viceroy's House (he himself said it was ‘all cribbed’) ), and the Mint in Calcutta (1940–49), a nobly Neo-Classical composition featuring the Roman Doric Order. Like Shoosmith, Medd was shamefully neglected when he returned to an England where his work and the Empire were out of favour, and so worked as a draughtsman. He was Master of the Art-Workers' Guild in 1959.

Bibliography

Gavin Stamp ;
Stamp (1976)

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Medd, Henry Alexander Nesbitt

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