The Great Lutyens: Forty Years On – Two Conversations about the 1981-1982 Hayward Gallery Exhibition
Two talks about the ground-breaking 1981-1982 Hayward Gallery exhibition, “Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens”, were held during the summer with the help of the generous donation of spaces and refreshments by law firm Stephenson Harwood at Britannic House on Finsbury Circus and by the Bloomsbury Hotel. These events were relayed live online.
The first lecture – “In Conversation with Clive Aslet, Janet Allen, Jane Ridley and Martin Lutyens” – took place at Britannic House, formerly BP’s Headquarters and designed by Lutyens. Janet had been Exhibition Organiser at the Arts Council, assigned to administering the Lutyens exhibition and worked with the Lutyens Exhibition Committee, chaired by Colin Amery. She had organised several other architecture exhibitions and was able to put the Lutyens exhibition in the context of the Art Department’s programme at the Hayward Gallery and art historical scholarship. She explained why the exhibition was mounted at the Hayward, one of Britain’s foremost Brutalist buildings. Martin talked of family connections, the family’s generosity in making loans available and movingly of Lutyens’s last years and the immediate postwar period when his reputation was at its nadir. Jane focused her talk on a surviving set of installation slides to show the stunning visual impact of the exhibition. Those attending enjoyed drinks afterwards in the Lutyens-designed chairman’s office.
The next Newsletter will include a detailed account by Janet Allen about the context in which the Hayward Gallery exhibition arose and the influence it had.
A surprise guest at the first talk was Piers Gough – designer of the Hayward show and the interviewee in the second conversation entitled “In Conversation with Charles Hind and Piers Gough”, held a week later in the library of The Bloomsbury Hotel, formerly the YWCA HQ, also designed by Lutyens. Gough explained his concept for the show and the difficulties of presenting architecture in exhibitions. Traditionally, architectural exhibitions had been based on photographs or drawings; instead, he wished to create a 3D environment so that visitors could experience the atmosphere at first hand, physically interacting with the items as much as possible. Visitors could sit on the Lutyens-designed garden seats, for example. Gough also commended the challenging spaces of the Hayward as adaptable enough to allow such a transformative experience.
To listen to these talks, please click on the link here: https://www.lutyenstrust.org.uk/about-lutyens/lectures/