British Embassy, Washington DC
Lutyens’s American embassy design adopted a hybrid Williamsburg‑and‑Wren classicism, separating chancery and ambassador’s residence but linking them with a bridged study, and giving the residence a grand double‑colonnaded garden portico fronting a suite of elegant enfilade reception rooms.
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Description
The style adopted for this public building attempts, with some success, to combine Williamsburg with Wren. Lutyens, fulfilling the requirements of the two different functions of diplomatic life, divided the embassy into the chancery office building and the ambassador’s residence, and linked the two at first floor level by the ambassador’s study built as a bridge. On the garden façade of the residence there is a great portico with a double colonnade. Lutyens designed a series of elegant rooms enfilade along the east-wing axis. (Amery et al, 1981, Cat no.183)
Bibliography
Amery, C., Richardson, M. and Stamp, G., (1981) Lutyens, the Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944): Hayward Gallery London, 18 November 1981 – 31 January 1982. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
, Butler, A., 1950. The architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens: the Lutyens memorial series. Vol II: Gardens: Lay-Outs and Town-Planning: Brdiges: Imperial Delhi: Johannesburg Art Gallery: The Washington Embassy: University Buildings, Country Life: London and Scribners: New York.
HUSSEY, C., 1927. THE NEW EMBASSY at WASHINGTON: SIR EDWIN LUTYENS’ DESIGNS. Country Life (Archive : 1901 – 2005), 62(1614), pp. 943-946.
