Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T10:42:13.053Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Edwin Lutyens in Spain: the Palace of El Guadalperal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2017

Íñigo Basarrate
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the work of Edwin Lutyens has received careful scholarly study since the 1980s, his projects in Spain remain very little known. Unfortunately, Lutyens was unable to complete his Spanish commissions, mostly because of the deterioration of country's economy and social order in the 1930s, and this has played a major role in keeping these projects in the dark. Furthermore the devastation caused by the Civil War obliterated most of the evidence once held in Spanish archives.

This paper focuses on Lutyens's main commission in Spain, the palace of El Guadalperal, designed for the eighteenth Duke of Peñaranda as a country house on his estate in south west Spain. This decades-long commission, lasting from 1915 to 1934, represents a very significant and original work in Lutyens's output. The first version for the palace shows his capacity to adapt his architecture to the local climate and architectural traditions, while the second would have been, if built, his largest country house, approaching the grandeur and magnificence of the Viceroy's House in Delhi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 60 , 2017 , pp. 303 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Richardson, Margaret and Stamp, Gavin, ‘Lutyens and Spain,’ AA Files, 3 (1983), pp. 51–59 Google Scholar.

2 Hussey, Christopher, The Life of Sir Edwin Lutyens (London, 1950), pp. 384–87Google Scholar.

3 The Liria Palace was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1936, and the letters that Lutyens exchanged with ‘Nando’ Peñaranda and ‘Jimmy’ Alba were lost together with his plans for both the Liria and El Guadalperal estates. The library at La Ventosilla was also burnt during the Civil War, along with any drawings and letters that might have been stored there.

4 Pevsner, Nikolaus, ‘Building with Wit: Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens’, Architectural Review, 109 (1951), pp. 217–25Google Scholar.

5 Bernal, Ana Aranda, La arquitectura inglesa en el Campo de Gibraltar (Cadiz, 2007)Google Scholar; Pereira, José Ramón Alonso, Ingleses y españoles: la arquitectura de la edad de plata (Corunna, 2000)Google Scholar; Vilchez, Miguel González, Historia de la arquitectura inglesa en Huelva (Seville, 2008)Google Scholar.

6 del Campo, Luis G. Martínez, ‘La educación del “gentleman” español; la influencia británica sobre la élite social española (1898–1936)’, Ayer, 89 (2013), pp. 123–44Google Scholar.

7 de Osma, José A. Vaca, Alfonso XIII, el rey paradoja (Madrid, 1993), p. 56Google Scholar; Petrie, Sir Charles, King Alfonso XIII and His Age (London, 1963), p. 79Google Scholar.

8 Marroyo, Fernando Sánchez, La España del siglo XX. Economía; demografía y sociedad (Madrid, 2003), pp. 50–54 Google Scholar.

9 Aranda Bernal, La arquitectura inglesa en el Campo de Gibraltar, pp. 58–61.

10 Richardson and Stamp, ‘Lutyens and Spain’.

11 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 23 October 1915.

12 Ibid.

13 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 23 October 1915: ‘there are some good Goya's and many other Spanish pictures, Van Dyck … beautiful tapestries.’

14 Lutyens's name appears in the list of subscribers to Prentice, Andrew Noble, Renaissance Architecture and Ornament in Spain (London, 1893)Google Scholar.

15 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 25 October 1915.

16 Irving, Robert G., Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker and Imperial Delhi (New Haven, London, 1981), p. 241Google Scholar.

17 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 26 October 1915.

18 Ibid., 27 October 1915.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., 17 October 1916.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., 20 November 1916.

27 Ibid., 21 November 1916.

28 Ibid., 22 November 1916.

29 Ibid., 7 August 1917. Similar information, reporting meetings with Peñaranda is given in letters written on 21 August, and 11 and 14 Sepember.

30 ‘De Sociedad’, Periódico ABC, 10 November 1917, p. 11.

31 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 3 January 1917.

32 Ibid., 23 October 1915.

33 Progress at El Guadalperal was briefly explained in ‘The Unfinished Palace’, the statement that Hinton wrote at Christopher Hussey's request and which has regrettably disappeared from the Scotney Castle archive. Fortunately, the key information in it was used by Richardson and Stamp in ‘Lutyens in Spain’.

34 ‘El Guadalperal, Spain,’ The Building News and Engineering Journal, 113 (1917), pp. 284 and 290–96Google Scholar; ‘House in El Guadalperal, Spain’, The Builder, 11 May 1917.

35 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 9 February 1919.

36 Irving, Indian Summer, p. 126.

37 Hussey, The Life, p. 14.

38 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, PB 90A/LUT[407].

39 Ibid., PA1609/LUT(251) 1, 2 and 3.

40 Ibid. PA1609/LUT(251)1.

41 Ibid. DR60 / 9 (1–3).

42 Ibid., DR60 / 9 (4–12).

43 y Romea, Vicente Lampérez, Arquitectura civil española de los siglos I al XVIII (Madrid, 1922), vol. 1, p. 368 Google Scholar.

44 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, E.L. Lutyens to Lady Emily, 23 October 1915.

45 Lampérez, Arquitectura Civil Española, vol.1, p. 438.

46 Carazo, Enrique, ‘El palacio de los condes de Miranda en Peñaranda de Duero’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 85 (1997), pp. 505–43Google Scholar.

47 Cremades, Fernando Checa, Arquitectura del renacimiento en España, 1488–1599 (Madrid, 1993), p. 865Google Scholar.

48 Villaamil, Pérez (Paris, 1842–1850), Parcerisa (Barcelona, 1839–1865), Fergusson (London, 1865), Wyatt (London, 1872), Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España (Madrid, 1856–81), Calvert (London, 1908)Google Scholar. Only an article in a Spanish journal of very limited circulation had photographs of its façade ( y Romea, Vicente Lampérez, ‘El Palacio de lo Condes de Miranda, en Peñaranda de Duero’, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, 20 (June 1912), pp. 145–59Google Scholar)

49 Carazo, ‘El palacio de los condes’, pp. 505–43.

50 Checa Cremades, Arquitectura del renacimiento en España, p. 864.

51 ‘El Guadalperal, Spain,’ Building News and Engineering Journal , 113 (1917), p. 284Google Scholar.

52 Ibid.

53 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 27 October 1915.

54 Ibid., PA1608/LUT[224](1–6).

55 For example, F. P. Allen, ‘San Diego Exposition’, The Burlington Magazine, 32 (1915), pp. 116–26; C. Bukwith, ‘The Development of Architecture in California,’ The Burlington Magazine, 3 (1918), pp. 145–49; ‘The Panama Pacific Exposition’, The Builder, 109 (1915), 291–94.

56 ‘Official Architecture in India’, The Builder, 110 (1916), pp. 209–10.

57 ‘Architectural Work of the Government in India’, The Builder, 112 (1917), p. 145.

58 Baker, Herbert, Architecture and Personalities (London, 1944), p. 35Google Scholar.

59 Hussey, The Life, p. 206.

60 Sambricio, Carlos, Madrid, vivienda y urbanismo: 1900–1960 (Madrid, 2004), p. 95Google Scholar.

61 For Hinton, see Richardson and Stamp, ‘Lutyens in Spain’ and above nn. 1 and 33.

62 Hussey, The Life, p. 385.

63 Ibid.

64 For this the Ministry of Agriculture bestowed upon him the Great Cross of Agriculture (Gaceta de Madrid, 11 June 1929).

65 ‘Viajeros’, Periódico ABC, 20 March 1921, p. 14.

66 ‘De Sociedad Ecos Diversos,’ Periódico ABC, 27 January 1922, p. 15.

67 See Richardson and Stamp, ‘Lutyens in Spain’ as above nn. 1 and 33.

68 Farré, Juan Avilés, Seoane, Susana Sueiro and Pérez-Grueso, Dolores Elizalde, Historia Política 1875–1939: Historia de España Contemporánea (Madrid, 2002), p. 307Google Scholar.

69 Together with the trips of 1925 and 1926, Hussey (The Life, p. 456) mentions briefly another one in 1924 of which no documentary evidence has been found.

70 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 5 December 1925.

71 Ibid., 26 November 1926.

72 Ibid.

73 See Richardson and Stamp, ‘Lutyens in Spain’ as above nn. 1 and 33.

74 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 27 October 1915.

75 For example, in December 1926 (Periódico ABC, 11 December 1926, p. 15) and in November (Periódico ABC, 12 November 1929, p. 25).

76 Hussey, The Life, p. 464.

77 Volwahsen, Andreas, Imperial Delhi: The British Capital of the Indian Empire (London, Munich, 2002), p. 88Google Scholar.

78 Serlio, Sebastiano, Serlio, Sebastiano, Tutte l'opere d'architettura et prospetiva (Venice, 1619, Book 3, fol. 164v. Le antiquità di Roma (Venice, 1540), f. 67Google Scholar.

79 Watkin, David, ‘Sir Edwin Lutyens (1866–1944): ¿El mejor arquitecto británico?’, in Maestros de la arquitectura moderna en la residencia de estudiantes (Madrid, 2009), p. 222Google Scholar. For Sanmicheli's influence on British architecture, see Davies, Paul and Hemsoll, David, ‘Sanmicheli Through British Eyes’, in English Architecture Public and Private, ed. Bold, John and Chaney, Edward (London, 1993), pp. 121–34Google Scholar.

80 Irving, Indian Summer, p. 241.

81 Butler, Arthur S.G., The Domestic Architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens (London, 1950), p. 55Google Scholar.

82 See Richardson and Stamp, ‘Lutyens in Spain’ as above nn. 1 and 33.

83 Ibid.

84 La Gaceta de Madrid, 25 February 1933.

85 RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection, Lutyens to Lady Emily, 14 June 1934.

86 Escolar, José Luis Sampedro, La Casa de Alba (Madrid, 2007), p. 245Google Scholar.

87 Basarrate, Iñigo, ‘Lutyens en Madrid: la reconstrucción del Palacio de Liria’ in Arquitectura importada y exportada en España y Portugal (1925–1975) (Pamplona: T6 Ediciones, 2016), pp. 139–48Google Scholar.

88 Jeanneret, Charles Edourd, Towards a New Architecture (London, 1927)Google Scholar.