Upcoming Webinar
Silent Witness: Lutyens’s Memorials & Cemeteries within the Battlefields of the Western Front.
Date: Thursday, November 21st 12:00PM EST
(9:00 AM PST, 10:00 AM MST, 11:00 CST, 5:00 PM GMT)
hosts: Marcos Lutyens and Robin Prater
panelists: Jon Gedling and Lynelle Howson
Upcoming Event
Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll at Munstead Wood
Location: The Madoo Conservancy, 618 Sagg Main Street, Sagaponack, New York 11962
Dates: Sunday, October 27 | 12:00 noon, reception to follow
Tickets $35.00
We are delighted to host a conversation with Sir Edwin Lutyens’s granddaughter Candia Lutyens and Judith Prause, both Board Directors of the Lutyens Trust America, moderated by Alejandro Saralegui, Director of the Madoo Conservancy, on the intersection of landscape and architecture at Munstead Wood, the home of Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). The Grade I listed Munstead Wood in Godalming, Surrey, was designed by a young Edwin Lutyens and constructed from bargate stone and other local materials. Miss Jekyll incorporated many of her own ideas into the design, all of which add to its charm. It was completed in 1897. The garden—also Grade I listed—was created on heath land, some thirteen years before the house was built, during which time Miss Jekyll lived next door in The Hut. Munstead Wood was acquired by Britain’s National Trust in 2023. A brief film, “Munstead Wood 1896: A House for Miss Gertrude Jekyll” will be shown as well.
Upcoming Conference
Sir Edwin Lutyens: the ‘High Game’
Dates: November: Friday 15 – Sunday 17, 2024
Lodging: Downing College, Cambridge
The year 2024 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Sir Edwin Lutyens – and coincidentally the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Lutyens Trust, which promotes the preservation of and research into the work of Lutyens. Knighted in 1918, recipient of the RIBA Gold Medals in 1921 and of the AIA in 1925, Lutyens has been regarded by some architectural historians as Britain’s greatest 20th-century architect. His design for the Cenotaph in Whitehall encapsulates with extraordinary dignity the national sentiment of sacrifice in the cause of freedom that still surrounds the two World Wars and his Viceroy’s House (now the Rashtrapati Bhavan) in New Delhi is a universally acknowledged architectural masterpiece. Lutyens’s death and the interment of his ashes in St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1944 was quickly followed by publication of the three large volumes forming the Lutyens Memorial and a canonising biography by Country Life’s Christopher Hussey. Eighty years on, his overall standing is not so clear. Lutyens’s early, Arts and Crafts-inspired houses have continued to gather admirers, but his shift to classicism in his later designs – the ‘High Game’ as he called it – has left his architectural legacy less obvious.
What We Do
The Lutyens Trust America is an organization formed to promote the appreciation and knowledge of the work of the British architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens OM (1869-1944). Considered one of the most remarkable architects in British history, Sir Edwin Lutyens left behind a rare architectural legacy that included a rich variety of form and style. Among his over 800 commissions, Lutyens designed many beautiful country houses, public buildings, bridges, and war memorials in Britain. His prolific work abroad includes designs such as Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, Thiepval Arch on the Somme in France, and the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., as well as many other distinguished buildings.
The wit and finesse of Lutyens’s architecture continues to be a source of inspiration and delight to architects and those interested in architecture, making his built work, memorials, drawings, and letters worthy of preservation and study, not just in Britain but also in the United States. As an educational organization, The Lutyens Trust America focuses on enhancing appreciation of, and on providing opportunities for the study and conservation of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s work. Events for The Lutyens Trust America will include tours of Lutyens-related sites, lectures, and the support of ongoing preservation efforts related to Lutyens’s legacy of architectural design. One of our aims is to inspire new generations of architects and designers to revisit Lutyens’s work as an inspiration for their own creative paths.
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