Lutyens Abroad: Conference in Rome

October 1999, Reported by Dr Mervyn Miller

The British School at Rome, originally designed by Lutyens in 1910, as an exhibition building, based upon the upper storey of the west front of St Paul’s Cathedral, provided an appropriate setting for a comprehensive, and congenial analysis of his work beyond the British Isles. Organised and chaired by Gavin Stamp and Andrew Hopkins, the contributions ranged across Lutyens’s travels in Europe, his exhibition buildings and his war memorials, as well as the major projects in New Delhi and Washington. In addition to scholars of many years standing, such as Margaret Richardson, Hermione Hobhouse, Roderick Gradidge, Gavin Stamp and Robert Irving, the event was notable for including the work of a younger generation. As Gavin Stamp reminded us, the standing of Lutyens is reflected by the calibre of ongoing research into his life and work, and its context. It was good to hear from Jane Ridley, who is currently working on a new biography of her great-grandfather, in which we are promised a reassessment of the role of his wife, Lady Emily Lytton. David Crellin gave two contrasted papers – on Lutyens’s architectural translation of Wren and Sanmicheli, and on the war memorials of the Somme. John Rollo’s computer analysis of the typology of Lutyens’s house plans would have amazed their creator, but revealed his instinctive ability to generate multiple variations on simple ground rules. Emmanuel Ducamp revealed the genesis of that most intriguing house, Le Bois des Moutiers, and others commissioned by the Mallet family. Sadly, Alan Greenberg was unable to attend but his paper on the British Embassy at Washington, presented by Andrew Hopkins, rounded off the event most fittingly.