Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( [ˈlʌtjənz] ; born March 29, 1869 in London , England ; † January 1, 1944 there ) is considered one of the greatest British architects of the 20th century . He designed many English country houses and was involved in the design and construction of New Delhi .

Beginnings

After studying architecture at the " South Kensington School of Art " in London - 1885 to 1887 - he worked in the architecture office of Ernest George and Harold Ainsworth Peto . There he met Herbert Baker , with whom he was working on the New Delhi project.

He opened his own office in 1888. The first assignment was a private home in Crooksbury , Surrey . There he met the future garden designer Gertrude Jekyll . In 1896 he was working on a house for Gertrude Jekyll in Munstead Wood, Surrey. It was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration that significantly influenced the appearance of many of his country houses. The Lutyens-Jekyll-Garten has large areas of winter-proof ground cover in a classic architecture of stairs and balustrades. The combination of the strict with the informal - brick paths, loosened up with swaying flower borders, lilies, lupins, delphinium and lavender - formed a strong contrast to the strict bedding scheme of the Victorian period, which his later collaborator, the landscape architect Reginald Blomfield , preferred.

Work

Initially, Lutyens' designs were based on the handicraft style of the Arts and Crafts Movement , but around 1900 he turned to classicism . His assignments varied in nature. Private houses such as the Bois des Moutiers on the French Atlantic coast, churches for the new suburb of Hampstead Garden in London, Castle Drogo in Drewsteignton , Devon , right through to collaboration on India's new capital New Delhi . In this project, he added elements of local architecture to his classicism and used his urban designs for the Mughal Empire's water gardens .

In 1910 Lutyens went to South Africa to start planning the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which was inaugurated in 1915 . However, it was only partially carried out according to his designs.

In 1911 the eminent New Zealand architect William Gummer worked with Lutyens. His house, Stoneways, is shaped by this classical influence.

After the First World War , he was commissioned to design memorials for the fallen. The most famous monuments are the cenotaph in London and the memorial for those missing from the Battle of the Somme (1916). Many local memorials, such as the All Saints in Northampton, are designed by Lutyen based on the cenotaph. He also designed the National War Memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin , which was expanded in 1980. Other works included the Tower Hill Memorial and a memorial in Victoria Park in Leicester . Lutyens also renovated Lindisfarne Castle.

In 1918 he was beaten to Knight Bachelor . He was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts as a candidate in 1913, then elected a full member in 1920, and was its president from 1938 to 1944.

While working in New Delhi, Lutyens received other assignments, including a. various commercial buildings in London and the British Embassy in Washington DC.

In 1924 he completed the construction of his most famous design, the Queen Mary's Dolls' House . A four- story, 1:12 scale Palladian villa, now a permanent exhibition in the public area of Windsor Castle . It was not designed to be used as a children's toy, but rather to represent the best of British craftsmanship of the time.

Lutyens was commissioned in 1929 to design a Roman Catholic cathedral for Liverpool . Work on this building began in 1933, but was interrupted by the Second World War, and after the war the project was temporarily terminated due to lack of money with the crypt; The architect of the current cathedral is Frederick Gibberd .

New Delhi

Rashtrapati Bhavan

In the last twenty years of his career he designed New Delhi with Herbert Baker . It was to replace Calcutta as the seat of the British-Indian government in 1912; the project was completed in 1929 and officially inaugurated in 1931.

In carrying out the project, Lutyens developed his new order u. a. with classical pillars, what became known as the "Delhi Order". Unlike the more traditional British architects before him, he was inspired and associated with various features of the local traditional Indian architecture - best seen in the cylindrically arranged Buddhist temple of the Viceroy. This palatial building with 340 rooms stands on an area of ​​around 1.3 square kilometers and has a private garden, which Lutyens also designed. At that time, over 2,000 people looked after the building and served in the viceroy's household. The building was designed as the residence of the Viceroy of India and is now the official residence of the President of India ( Rashtrapati Bhavan ). Bells are carved into the pillars at the front entrance. Lutyens had the idea that as long as these bells are silent, British rule will never end; India gained independence in 1947.

The India Gate , one of the most famous sites

Both parliamentary buildings and administrative offices were built in the new city . They are unmistakably built with the local red sandstone in the traditional Mughal style . When he was drawing the plans of New Delhi, he planned the location of the new city to the southwest of Shahjahanbad . His plans also included the streets of New Delhi with wide tree-lined avenues.

In the spirit of British colonial rule, the place where the new imperial city and the old city meet was planned as a market; According to Lutyens' idea, the Indian traders should participate in the "large shopping center for the residences of Shahjahanabad and New Delhi". This created the D-shaped market as it is known today.

In 2004 the Indian government announced that it would demolish hundreds of private mansions, which were part of Lutyens' original plans for New Delhi, to build high-rise blocks for the poor.

In 1930 he was awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) and in 1942 the Order of Merit .

Teak garden bench designed by Lutyens

Working in Ireland

In Ireland, Lutyens was involved in Hugh Lane's competition for a modern art building in Dublin. Various proposals were made, including a portico across from St. Stephen's Green, the Royal College of Surgeons. The most controversial design was the proposal for a bridge gallery over the Liffey . This aroused a lot of criticism, especially from Irish architecture magazines, which complained about the decision in favor of this "foreign" architecture, even though Lutyens' mother was Irish. The design was in the form of two pavilions at either end, with a pillar pergola in between over the three-arched bridge. Possibly the idea originated when Lane died in the sinking of the Lusitania .

marriage and family

Two years after she was introduced to him, and despite parental displeasure, he married Lady Emily Lytton, daughter of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton , on August 4, 1897. They had five children, but the marriage quickly fell apart . Lady Emily turned to theosophy and Eastern religions, with an emotional and philosophical fascination for Jiddu Krishnamurti .

Her daughter Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983) was a well-known composer; her other daughter, Mary Lutyens (1908-1999), became a writer best known for her books on Krishnamurti.

In the last few years of his life, Lutyens suffered from pneumonia several times. Cancer was diagnosed in the early 1940s. He died on New Years Day 1944. Lutyens was cremated in Golders Green Crematorium , his urn is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral , London.

The politician Nicholas Ridley was his grandson.

literature

• Robert Williams: Edwin Lutyens and the Formal Garden in England . In: Die Gartenkunst 7 (2/1995), pp. 201–209.

Web links

Commons : Edwin Lutyens  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Edwin Lutyens. In: arch INFORM .
• The Lutyens Trust
• Jane Ridley: Architect for the metropolis. In: City Journal. Spring 1998.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sir Edwin Lutyens, PRA in the database of the Royal Academy of Arts, English, accessed on May 23, 2013.