Builder of Cities and Shrines

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22504, 22 August 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

Builder of Cities and Shrines

ARMISTICE DAY IN LOiNDON ~ The King placing a wreath at the base of the Cenotaph.

Now, what can you do with a man 1 iko that? This is the question they all ask about Sir Edwin. He says dreadful tiling* so innocently; lie treads on your corns so wittily and then apologises so outrageously that everyone gives him up as hopeless, laughs at his jokes and hopes secretly never to be one of (lis victims. This sense of wit and style and gaiety which make him such a sought-after, but terrible, companion, infuses all Sir Edwin's work as an architect. There is liveliness and spirit as well as grandeur and grace in the stones anil brick which form a Lutyens building. Naturally, this does not please all his architectural colleagues. He refuses to be jut in category. He does not belong to any current school of architectural thought. Jle builds in his own way, not paying too strict attention to the rules inside which lesser men are caged. Colleagues Bewildered In fact, many architects look on Sir Kdwin just as his contemporaries looked on Sir Christopher Wren. They think lie is not "quite sound," and they arc bewildered that the important commissions are put in iiis way, and that he executes them to the complete satisfaction of everyone except themselves. Just consider a lew of his major achievements. There is the New Delhi, a complete capital for the government of India, with Parliament Buildings, palaces, Government offices, squares, avenues and a residential quarter. He planned it all in a bold mixture of English and Indian architectural idioms. "Horrid!" prophesied the purists. "Magnificent!" declared everyone who sees even photographs of the finished masterpiece.

EVERYONE knows his name. "Lutyens? Oh, yes, he's the chap who ,designed the Cenotaph, isn't he?" And, had he done Uo more than create the one structure of the present century, which possesses historic and emotional significance for every British citizen, Sir Edwin would be sure of his little niche in the Temple of 1 arrie. Future ages, however, will not thus identify him wilh his austere memorial in Whitehall, London.

to-day. The very shrewd, lively eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses are superbly alert and twinkling—the eyes of an undergraduate out lor all the world can offer him.

From them, you can deduce that Sir Kdwin likes a joke. He does too much so, some people say. His puckish sense of humour has olten landed him in trouble. Once he greatly annoyed u distinguished Vicereine of India. Hearing of her anger, he wrote:

"1 weep at your feet, and dry the tears witli mv hair. It is true I have very little hair. Hut it is also true that vou have very little feet.

Long after memory has grown so <lim that the Imperial Armistice Day commemoration at the Cenotaph has been discontinued, Sir Edwin will remain famous by reason of a vast brick and granite building which, under his inspiration, is now rising on a hill overlooking Liverpool. To the world. Sir Christopher Wren means St. I'aid's Cathedral, London. In the twent v-lirst cent ury, Sir hdwin Laty oils will mean the Cathedral of Christ the King. Liverpool. "Bv the time the eat hedra! is finished," said Kir Edwin lightly, at the beginning of the work, "1 shall he eighty. I'm sixty ®ow. So we shall lie 'JO years at work, is quick for a cathedral." I hen, father as an afterthought, lie added, i am beginning the plans at once." Shrewd, Lively Eyes Sir Kdwm has every right to expect »°t only to see his cathedral finished, "'it to ho hard at work on other great designs on his eightieth birthday. For a " his venerable tufts of snowy hair ni,( l high limned forehead, he looks ten fifteen years younger than his age

Sir Edwin Lutyens' £3,000,000 Cathedral in Liverpool

WORLD-FAMOUS ARCHITECT WHO "SAYS DREADFUL THINGS"

By JOHN HUME KENYON (Copyright Reserved)

Then there are the new British Embassy in Washington, which brought Sir Edwin the gold medal of the American institute of Architects, the Somme Memorial at Thiepval, the new Y.M.C.A. headquarters in Bloomsbury, the Merchant Navy War Memorial on Tower Hill, the British School in Rome, and the South African War Memorial at .Johannesburg. And all these are tTie fruit of the latter part of his career. Time for Everything So you can see that Sir Edwin is industrious. He is one ol those very busy men who seem to have time for everything. You will never find him too occupied for talk, provided it is good talk, ami that you have something to say. He is not at all partial to delivering monologues. The cut and thrust of keen conversation and argument are his amusement. One of his constant themes is the destruction of beautiful buildings now so constant —particularly in London. "Day by day the stature of England's beauty grows smaller. . . ." he laments. "The sacred rights of ownership permit the replacement of good old buildings with sky blocks, monsters of brutal brick and crazy cement. It seems that money must be made at any cost. "Beautiful old buildings have been destroyed so recklessly that whenever I see anything really fine I say to myself, 'That's good enough to pull down.' " Sir Edwin's days are spent in many places. He lives in Mansfield Street near Harley Street, all among the doctors and dentists; but his work is carried on in three separate offices —-at 5 Eaton Gate, in Queen Anne's Gate ;ind in Bolton Street. Piccadilly

So busy is he that he employs a small ' corps of assistants to draw the plans and technical details ol design necessary for the men who are to transform his dreams into buildings. Sir Edwin supervises every detail himself, never walking a step when lie can ride; he visits all his drawing offices in turn, smoking tiny pipes incessantly, as shrewd and tactful and humorous with his stall' as he is when lie dines out and shocks the company. Let us, for a moment, study his "background." Sir Edwin is a cockney, born in ]8(59. In boyhood he decided what he wanted to be, and never had any troubles or heart-searehings about his fitness to he an architect. He was trained at the South Kensington art schools, and by constant work in architects' offices during his teens. He made a nuisance of himself to lots of architects when finding out all about it. An annoying youth, he often knew more about it than the men who tried to teach him. Building the New Delhi At nineteen he landed his first commission, and from that moment, as they say, "he lias never looked back." His career falls into two parts. First ho became famous as a builder ol country houses, and restorer and modernise! - of ancient but inconvenient mansions. Castles, gardens, churches, bridges, cottages on estates, gates, lodges, stables —he built them all. And they all bear the Lutycns stamp of originality without a trace of freakishness. In 1911 ho was chosen as the architect of the Now Delhi, and the second phase of his career began. Since then great public buildings, war memorials and the magnificent British War Cemeteries (he was principal architect to the

Imperial War Graves Commission) have preoccupied him. Sir Edwin was knighted in 1918. Tn 1913 he was elected A.1?.A., and a full academician in 1920. Ihat is his official career—as ordinary and unrevealing to read about as most very successful careers are apt to he. He proves, by his abundantly active life, the fallacy that exercise is necessary to keep a man fit. Uninterrupted cood health lias attended him; yet he has never played a game of anything in his life. A walk from one side of his drawing office to the other is quite enough for him. " Unsafe to Unscrew Nuts " Once, however, he did take an interest in badminton, when staying with Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, during his preoccupation over the New Delhi. With the Viceroy Sir Edwin was examining the house to find a suitable room for an indoor badminton court. A perfect site was located, but it seemed spoilt by a large nut and bolt in the middle of the floor. ''Don t mo\c it." counselled Sir Edwin. But the Viceroy insisted. Carpenters arrived, unscrewed the nut. As it came off, the bolt vanished through the floor. J hen came a terrible crash of smashing glass as the vast chandelier in the room below bit the dining table. "L told Your Excellency," said Sir Edwin in his quiet little voice, "that it is always unsafe to unscrew nuts." Eight tons ol paper were used in Sir Edwin's drawing office lor the plans of the Liverpool Cathedral. Thousands on thousands of sheets—each bearing some vital message to the builders, and each meticulously scanned by Sir Edwin s beady eye before it was passed as satisfactory. Architect and Archbishop That in itself is a task of some magnitude. But it is nothing compared with the years of concentration behind the conception of the design itself in the architect's brain. "1 suppose,"' says Sir Edwin, "the summit of an architect's ambition is to design a cathedral. There is no greater task, and there is nothing which gives him the same wide scope for the play of his ideas." For many years before ho was commissioned to design the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sir Edwin had brooded over his cathedral—supposing his chance ever came to build it. All the experience and creative force of his life guided those dreams. He could see it all in his mind's eye. He had drawn its general design scores of times. Then his chance came. Archbishop Downev, the redoubtable Roman Catholic prelate who is respected in Liverpool by all creeds, decided that a great, cathedral must be built in the diocese, which contains the largest Roman Catholic population in Britain. A Jew introduced the Archbishop to Sir Edwin, who is himself an Anglican. Many long, tremendous talks resulted. Cathedral ol Dreams For the Archbishop, no less than Sir Edwin, had planned a cathedral of his dreams. Ami the Archbishop laid down various quite adamant conditions concerning the design. But by degrees the two men, wholly dissimilar except that they both enjoy a joke, came to understand one another perfectly. Sir Edwin returned to his cathedral, and planned it anew so that it fulfilled the Archbishop's dearest ambitions no less than his own.

SIR EDWIN LUTYENS On Whit Sunday 1933, the foundation stone was laid with solemn ceremonial which has perhaps never before been witnessed in Britain—certainly not since the Reformation. And now the work is going ahead. Thin narrow bricks, rather like Roman tiles, and sparkling grey Irish granite are the main materials used. Each month new features of Sir Edwin's design are unfolding themselves as block is laid on block, brick 011 brick. Finally, a cathedral which will dwarf St. Paul's, which will cover four times the area of "Westminster Cathedral, and which will be surmounted by the largest dome in the world —16S feet in diameter, will tower over Liverpool,

sister and contrast to the great Anglican cathedral, which, built by a Roman Catholic architect, Sir Giles Scott, is Hearing completion on a nearby hill top. St. Paul's Cathedral is about 500 feet long and 250 feet wide. The Lutyens cathedral will be 650 feet long, and 500 feet wide. It will hold a congregation of 10,000. Much speculation has taken place as to how far out to sea the dome will be risible to incoming ships. Such speculation annoys Sir Edwin. When asked about it, he declared: "It will be visible from America, I should think." Sir Edwin is constantly in Liverpool, supervising it all with the Archbishop. He is anxious to push ahead. But it all depends how fast the money comes in. £3,000,000 is the estimated cost in round figures. But great buildings have an unhappy knack of outrunning their estimates. Tremendous efforts to raise the necessary funds are being made under Dr. Downey's most energetic lead. Sir Edwin keeps an eager eye on their progress. He wants his cathedral finished in his lifetime. He wants it to be ready when he is eighty, as he prophesied it would be. " Cannot Bury Failures " But sometimes he has doubts. "Those tour great pillars alone," he said lately, pointing to a plan, "will cost £250,000 if they are built of the good stuff I want." Nevertheless he comforts himself quickly. Life is too full of grand ideas, and good friends and fun to be gloomy for very long. There is so much to do and say, and so little time for it all. Besides someone else may be wanting another cathedral soon. < Just a parting and typical shot. Lately, Sir Edwin was driving with one of those great doctors among whom he lives. The doctor pointed out some modern architectural horror by the roadside and lamented over it. " Yes," agreed Sir Edwin, "it is very bad. But Ave architects are not so lucky as you doctors. We cannot bury all our failures."