Sir Edwin Lutyens - by Clive Aslet (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

- Professor Clive Aslet, chairman of the Lutyens Trust, reveals the journey behind the buildings designed by Lutyens. This book digs deep into the archives, showcasing both Aslet's knowledge and unseen artwork and stories from the archives of the Lutyens Trust. Both commercial and personal commissions and stories reveal the man behind the persona. Was Sir Edwin Lutyens Britain's Greatest Architect?

- Featuring many previously unseen pictures

- Includes the stories behind the artwork

- Newly commissioned photography by Dylan Thomas

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.

Review Quotes

"Books can be polemic, books can be challenging, and sometimes books can just tell a good story. Clive Aslet's short biography of Lutyens tells a very good story - not entirely unknown but still packed with enough surprises to keep one reading to the very end. As editor of Country Life, Aslet has a unique perspective on Lutyens, who had designed the magazine's offices in 1904, and his biography seems to offer the perfect vehicle for combining a lifetime of observations about Lutyens with almost conversational informality. If only heroes of Modernism could be written about with similar fluency."--Dr Stephen Games, Architectural Book Awards Judge "Booklaunch"

"Clive Aslet's brilliant new biography has a question mark in its title, but before we are too far into the introduction of this sparkling little book, we clearly know the answer. Clive knows his material like few others...We can only hope subsequent volumes fizz with the same energy and command that he brings to these pages. Clive writes with effortless knowledge, bringing the trials and triumphs of Lutyens to life in a way that feels exciting and new."-- "House & Garden"

"In unduly modest remarks at the opening of this immaculate book, Clive Aslet, one of our most distinguished architectural historians, notes that there have been substantial biographies of Sir Edwin Lutyens, and he does not pretend to emulate them. His achievement, however, is considerable...First, he appreciates the sort of man Lutyens was, the influences upon him, and how he interacted with his family and his clients. Second, he has a deep understanding of the buildings, and the techniques employed in making them, and an enthusiasm he communicates unequivocally to his readers."-- "The Spectator"

"There are compelling reasons for revisiting Lutyens, and nobody could do it better than Clive Aslet, former editor of Country Life. This relatively short text, with chapters high-lighting significant works and well-chosen colour photographs, will lead new readers into a world that was supposed to have ended in 1914, but as the recent boom in country-house building suggests, is not so remote after all."-- "Country Life"

"As someone who absolutely adores Lutyens and his work I didn't believe there was anything more I could discover about him ... then this beautiful book comes along."--George Clarke

"Charming, erudite, amusing ... Aslet's energy, enthusiasm and learning, always lightly worn, are prodigious."--David Dimbleby

"Lively and scholarly, Aslet's concise biography, elegantly argues for Lutyens's place at the top table of British architecture."--Loyd Grossman

About the Author

Clive Aslet is a visiting professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and the publisher of Triglyph Books. For many years he worked at the magazine Country Life, where he was editor from 1993 until 2006.

Since publishing The Last Country Houses with Yale University Press in 1982, he has written over 30 books. His titles for Triglyph include Old Homes, New Life: The resurgence of the British country house and Living Tradition: The Architecture and Urbanism of Hugh Petter. In 2021 he became chair of the Lutyens Trust. He is also a trustee of INTBAU and for a decade he was the founding honorary secretary of what is now the Twentieth Century Society.

Married with three children, Clive lives in London and Ramsgate.