No architectural or design practice should be without the 3 volumes of "The Architecture of Sir Edward Lutyens" published in the Antique Collectors Club. This quintessentially English architect has lessons to teach contemporary avant garde architects as well as the traditionalists. Lutyens (1869-1944) was prolific and his range vast. English country houses, Town planning, War memorials, Imperial Delhi, gardens and furniture.
These books are amply illustrated and have beautiful architectural drawings, which further demonstrate his skill, inventiveness and humor, no where more than in his interios. His staircases are unmastered, easy to climb and easy to descend. In the British Embassy in Washington there, in a small Library, is a window overlooking the very grand staircase, for children to witness the great and good and powerful.
His details, his use of stone and wood, are all exceptional. I cannot admire his mammoth public building, Castle Drogo, magnificently sited yet a disappointment. But lots of quirky jokes, domes and jolly Elephants in New Delhi are all that you could wish for - not to speak of the gardens he designed with Gertrude Jekyll, joyful, pleasing with proportions smited to mankind - developers please take note!
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