Introducing New Book Lut – Life in the Office of Sir Edwin Lutyens, edited by Mark Lutyens with a Foreward by Victoria Glendinning and Introduction by Martin Lutyens

By Mark Lutyens

Three years ago, in an old trunk which I inherited from my father, Charles Lutyens, a former Trustee of the Lutyens Trust, I found a packet of letters, together with a muddle of other faded papers, magazines and news clippings, souvenirs, sketches and nameless photographs – all relating to Edwin Lutyens’s office and dutifully stored but never sorted – which his father, Eadred Lutyens, also an architect, had collected. I have to admit I didn’t at first recognise the value of them and it is thanks to Martin Lutyens, to whom I showed them, that I didn’t just burn them. He pointed out that they were both amusing and of potential interest to a wider audience, and that we should consider publishing them.

Several people have already touched on the subject of life in Edwin’s office – notably Mary Lutyens, his daughter, Jane Ridley, his great-granddaughter, his biographer Christopher Hussey and Margaret Richardson – and there is probably a larger, more serious book yet to be written about this, focusing perhaps on the many famous young architects who started their careers there. But this little book provides a lighthearted “glimpse behind the scenes”.

The book also includes a number of sketches and cartoons, many never seen or published before. These include ones drawn on “virgins” (small sheets of paper – a hole punched in their top-left corner, all fastened together with string) that ELL, as the great man’s colleagues often referred to him, carried with him wherever he went. He would sketch ideas on these whenever they occurred to him and tear them off and dish them out to colleagues and clients to illustrate a point.

It all started in 1939 when Eadred wrote to a number of former colleagues and fellow architects asking them to send him their memories of being assistants to his uncle, Edwin. Clearly, he hoped to publish them – there are references to this in the letters he received in reply – but this never happened. War broke out, times changed and, strange as it may seem, Edwin’s reputation languished and the moment passed. Eighty or so years later, prompted by Martin, these letters are finally seeing the light of day.

In order to create a fuller picture of life in Edwin’s office, we needed to do further research. Fortunately, despite the fact that the book was put together during the pandemic, when libraries, including the one housing the all-important RIBA collection, were closed, there was no shortage of other source material.

Anthony Eyre of Mount Orleans Press, the book’s publisher and editor, has done a splendid job of squeezing in as much material and information as possible into the book’s 64-page format without compromising the elegance of the finished product. Bravo, Anthony! My thanks also go to Victoria Glendinning for writing the foreword and to Martin for penning the introduction. I leave the final words about the book to Victoria – “It’s a real cracker!”

Lut – Life in the Office of Sir Edwin Lutyens is available from all good bookshops, priced at £25. For all Lutyens Trust members, it costs £20 (plus postage if appropriate; cost to be confirmed). Copies may be on sale at various Trust events with all proceeds going to it. For all enquiries, please contact Mark on mark@mark-lutyens.co.uk.