Sir Edwin Lutyens: Britain's Greatest Architect?

by Clive Aslet

Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was one of the great architects of the twentieth century. His Edwardian country houses, surrounded by rhapsodic gardens, beguiled clients with their romance and wit. After 1918, the war memorials that he created symbolised a grieving nation's sense of loss. In the new capital of the British Raj, New Delhi, the Viceroy's House or Rashtrapati Bhavan had a footprint bigger than Versailles. His unfinished Liverpool Cathedral would have rivalled St Peter's in Rome.

Intensely shy, Lutyens hid his personality behind puns and jokes - and yet he could be called 'part mystic', a reference to an inner profundity. Rich in stories, this entertaining and stylish short biography is a major new study incorporating fresh research which shows this most charismatic of architects in a new light.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 16, 2024

Reviews

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was Sir Edwin Lutyens Britain’s greatest architect? … The author explores this question through an overview of several quirky masterpieces by the self-taught, spatial wizard … From Munstead Wood through Castle Drogo and the Cenotaph to Campion Hall, Oxford, Lutyens dazzles with his eclectic approach to buildings … refreshing …