Lutyens and the Modern MovementIn the exclusionary world of high modern architecture, it is curious to discover that two icons of the movement both admired the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens - an architect who had little or no interest in modernism. Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright created buildings that are very different, and the two men did not even like each other, but they shared a fascination for Lutyens' distinctively non-international style architecture. This polemical text is an account of why this occured. By exposing common aesthetic and structural themes in the architecture of these three giants, including the cities of New Delhi and Chandigahr, in India, the author explains why Wright and Le Corbusier may have had more in common with Lutyens than with many of their modern peers. The primary text in the book was written in 1967 and was published in a student journal in the U.S. with a small circulation. It has remained an underground classic since then - perhaps because its contents are so disruptive of our current views of 20th century modernism. |
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accommodation Alvar Aalto architects architectural historian articulation Author's collection axes axial base basement Beaux Arts cemeteries Cenotaph central centre Chandigarh Charles Holden circulation classical Colin Rowe Corbu Corbusier's corridor Country courtesy cross axis dead dining room dome Durbar Hall entrance exterior facade fireplace Fondation Le Corbusier Frank Lloyd Wright Garches garden GATE geometric government buildings Governor's Palace Graves Commission grid Gropius ground floor plan Gunnar Asplund Heathcote Henry-Russell Hitchcock hexagons Hitchcock interior John Summerson King's landscape Library Little Thakeham loggias main axis mass Middleton Park Modern Architecture modern movement monumental Nashdom Papillon Hall plateau ramp relationship retaining walls road Robie house Salutation scale Secretariats Shingle Style side Sir Edwin Lutyens smallest arch soldiers Somme space stair staircase stone streets structure surrounding symmetrical tetrapylon Thakeham Thiepval Thomas Mawson TOMB Unwin vestibule Viceroy's Court Viceroy's House Villa Villa Savoye Ward Willitts house Whalton World