Paris Exhibition of 1900

Description

The first work of this kind undertaken by Mr. Lutyens was the English Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. He reproduced in the Rue des Nations on the banks of the Seine a typical English manor house of the early part of the seventeenth century, Kingston House, Bradford-on-Avon, and nothing could have been more appropriate. It had the great advantage (not shared by any other replicas of national buildings at Paris) that the house was reproduced full size instead of to some smaller scale. As Mr. Frederick Harrison wrote at the time: “It is the best and most truly artistic in the whole of the street of nations, the only one, indeed, that a man of taste could view without a smile or a groan.” …The interiors were reproductions of various historical examples. The drawing-room, for instance, had a ceiling taken from the famous example at Broughton Castle, and the moulds for it were provided by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The chimney-piece was reproduced from the Cartoon Gallery at Knole Park…The doorway to the saloon, with strapwork decoration on its flanking pilasters, is also a good example of Elizabethan treatment. (Weaver, 1913, p.308)

Bibliography

Weaver, L. (1913) Houses and Gardens by E L Lutyens. London: Country Life.

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