Francis Morrone Summer 2025
Just a quick update on some forthcoming lectures and tours this summer.
For the 92nd Street Y, I will be doing a four-part series, by Zoom, on my favorite architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944). Several people asked me to do this series. Lutyens was a British architect who began his own practice at the incredibly young age of 19. He’d had very little training. But he was supremely self-confident. And perhaps he had a premonition that he was in the right place at the right time, that fortuitous acquaintanceships—particularly with the great landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll and, through Jekyll, a man named Edward Hudson who was just starting a new magazine called Country Life—would propel his career to heights with record speed. His career was also unusual in that he began working in what we may call an Arts-and-Crafts vein, influenced by Philip Webb (the designer of William Morris’s Red House) and Richard Norman Shaw, though inflected with his own creative takes on the vernacular architecture of Surrey, where he grew up and first became fascinated by the building arts. Lutyens’s early works were praised by Frank Lloyd Wright—who did little praising of other architects’ works. His explorations in vernacular styles led to an interest in Georgian architecture, which in turn led him to an embrace of classicism. At a time when classical architects had undergone intensive training, such as at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and had worked, often for many years, in the offices of older classical architects, Lutyens came to classicism with none of that background. He was entirely self-taught in the classical orders. Perhaps it was for that reason that he was able to produce the most original classical buildings of the 20th century. His work reached a climax in his planning of the imperial capital city of New Delhi (needless to say, he had no background whatsoever in that kind of large-scale planning) and his design of the Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan, the residence of the president of India), a building larger than the Palace of Versailles—and in the view of some, the greatest building of the 20th century. He also designed the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, in Thiepval, France, as mesmerizing and moving a war memorial as ever produced. At the time of his death he was working on the design for the colossal (bigger than St. Peter’s!) Roman Catholic cathedral of Liverpool, which unfortunately was never built (except for its crypt). Had it been built, standing opposite Giles Gilbert Scott’s great Anglican cathedral in Liverpool, it would have made that city as compelling a city for architecture as any city in the world. For me, Lutyens exemplifies just how much originality may be wrung from the ancient languages of architecture. We will in this series look at maybe 75 buildings that he designed (including his wonderful British Embassy in Washington, D.C., his only building in the U.S.). I’ve spent a lot of time preparing the images for this series, and it will, perhaps more than any other series I’ve done, clearly convey what I value most in architecture—tradition wedded to originality.
OK, this is short notice: The series begins this Wednesday. But please bear in mind that 92nd Street Y records all these lectures so that you may view them at your convenience.
The lectures, each about an hour long, will take place on June 11 and 18 and July 2 and 9, at 3:00. The cost is $148 or $118.40 for members (and I think there is a discount if this is your first course at 92nd Street Y).
I hope you’ll consider it because I think it will be uniquely interesting, and is very personal for me.
I will also be leading some walking tours this summer, sponsored by Scarsdale Adult School. They are as follows:
June 24
1:00–2:30
Belmont in the Bronx
This one is already sold out, but there is a waiting list, and if enough people add their names to the waiting list I’ll do the tour a second time.
July 8
1:00–2:30
The Lower East Side: South of Delancey
July 15
1:00–2:30
The Lower East Side: North of Delancey
I will also be doing an unusual tour focusing on the architecture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both inside and out. This hasn’t been scheduled yet so stay tuned.
I may also add one or two more, and will keep you posted.
And a heads up, I will be leading a week-long trip to London and Bath in April. It’s not announced yet, but will soon be. If you’re interested, let me know and I will be sure you hear about it at the earliest possible moment.
Thanks, and I hope to see you this summer.
Best,
Francis