SIR EDWIN LUMENS.*
SID LAURENCE WEAVER is not only an exceedingly able archi- tectural critic, but also a writer of considerable distinction, and, with the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens as his 'theme, his latest book should have a very prosperous career. The tar-sighted who are already possessed of Sir Laurence's larger Lutyens book —published in 1913 and now out of print—will find little fresh in the present vOlume, which is no doubt issued to meet a popular demand for " More about the Cenotaph Architect." An excellent presentation of that monument graces the wrapper, and, as the author says, " He (Sir Edwin) has by one little work
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• Lutyens' Houses and Gardens. By Sir Laurence Wearer. London : Country Life. [10a. 85. net.i ---the Cenotaph—made joy in fine architecture a possession of the people." It is a fine phrase and we are eager to believe it true, but we cannot help wondering whether the crowding emotions aroused by memories leave much room in the minds and hearts of the people for any aesthetic appreciation of the actual memorial.
. However that may be, the Cenotaph has becoine an object of peculiar reverence, its designer has won popular esteem, and any work " by the author of the Cenotaph " is now secure of an interested and generally approving public. An architect with a " good Press " is, we believe, a new phenomenon in England ; and as the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens is more worthy of notice than that of any other English architect now living, the unsought publicity given to his buildings may well have a far-reaching effect in, the aesthetic education of a public still disturbingly insensitive.
Sir Edwin Lutyens is unique in many ways, and, to be at once an " architect's architect," a " fashionable architect," a " national architect," and now a " people's architect " is surely a position as rarely achieved as deserved. If Sir Edwin is pre- eminent he is fortunately not alone, and to study his work is to survey a large tract of contemporary architectural practice, its development and its tendencies.
He is the actual father of a great number of admirable build- ings, but he is also the spiritual god-father of an amazing amount of good work up and down the country by other men quick to develop his suggestions in. their own individual ways. He, like Norman Shaw and Philip Webb before him, has set up a fresh standard of excellence and of criticism, and to-day, so far at least as domestic work is concerned, the best Contemporary British architecture holds a high and honourable place. In writing of Nashdom, one of the larger Lutyens country houses, Sir Laurence Weaver considers that rare quality of originality, in the exercise of which Sir Edwin is so conspicuously happy.
" To most observers it will appear that Nashdom is invested with the quality which, for want of a better name, is known as originality: Hackneyed in use and idea as this word is, it may be accepted as reasonably descriptive if it carries the limitations of meaning which Coventry Patmore laid down. He claimed that originality, in art as in manners, ' consists simply in a man's being upon his own line ; in his advancing with a single mind towards his unique apprehension of good, and in his doing so in harmony with the universal laws.' The sort of sham originality which finds its issue in antics, oddities and crudities of architectural expression is, in fact, violating those reasonable laws which have crystallized as traditions of design and building. True originality finds its outlet ' in upholding those laws and illustrating them and making them unprecedentedly attractive by its own peculiar emphases and modulations.' It is precisely in this fashion that Sir Edwin Lutyens succeeds in, giving a personal character and distinction to his work. In some of his earliest buildings there are conceits that cannot justly resist the harsh name of quaint, but, as his art has matured, they have dropped away. He has been content in his later work to follow the narrow path of tradition, but always with emphases and modulations of his own."
In his preface the author hints that we may expect " in due course " another book dealing exhaustively with all the more notable of Sir Edwin's works, domestic, civic, monumental, and including the great buildings at Delhi. It will be very welcome.
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