We are very pleased to announce the dates and locations for the US lecture tour, The Country Houses of Sir Edwin Lutyens, which Charles Hind (RIBA Chief Curator and Architectural Historian) will be giving on our behalf for the Royal Oak Foundation this April.
Please see below for the dates and locations:
San Francisco: Tuesday 17 April
Washington DC: Tuesday 24 April
Don’t forget to use our co-sponsor code 18SRIBA for discounted tickets.
The Country Houses of Sir Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Landseer Lutyens is considered one of the greatest British architects of the first half of the 20th century.
Before 1914, a large part of his work was the building or remodelling of private homes and British country houses whilst after the 1st World War, he is primarily known for memorials and public buildings.
But even his greatest work, the Viceroy’s House in New Delhi, from which the British ruled India, is really an English country house on a monumental scale—for which the architect designed virtually every piece of furniture and the interior details including the doorknobs and chandeliers.
Lutyens’ early work was characterized as adaptations (but not copies) of rural vernacular. His early style grew out of the Arts and Crafts movement and was strongly influenced by his upbringing in rural Surrey, southwest of London. Stylistically Lutyens later moved to a full blown classicism—what he called “a big game, a high game”—which was popular during the later Edwardian period and of which the most dramatic example is Heathcote, a suburban villa in Ilkley, Yorkshire (1905-7) where used variations on Renaissance architecture.
But whichever style he adopted, Lutyens was deeply committed to developing and distilling its essence while making it suitable to the needs of his patrons, who required all the conveniences of modern life. He also integrated his houses with carefully considered and harmonious gardens influenced by his partnership with Gertrude Jekyll, for whom he built Munstead Wood (1893-97) and who introduced him to most of his earliest patrons, many of whom remained lifelong friends and supporters.
Two of Lutyens’ houses, Castle Drogo and Lindisfarne Castle (now National Trust properties) can be described as typical. Castle Drogo (1910-30), designed for a department store magnate, is a recreation of a medieval castle enclosing modern interiors, while Lindisfarne (1903) is a remodelling of a coastal Tudor fort created for the owner of Country Life Magazine. But both are far more romantic than their supposed or real historical origins might suggest.
Charles Hind, Chief Curator and H.J. Heinz Curator of Drawings at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), will talk about Lutyens’ domestic architecture and show, using illustrations drawn from RIBA’s extensive archive and images from the National Trust, how his work continues to inspire architects and patrons today, on both sides of the Atlantic.
