Quotes of the Day

Other people's marriages never cease to intrigue and puzzle. One that lasts for 47 years through two world wars, constant money worries, international fame and five children would seem solidly based on shared interests and attitudes and aligned emotions and temperaments. But as Jane Ridley demonstrates in this engrossing study of the relationship between Edwin Lutyens, the leading English architect of the first half of the 20th century, and his wife Emily, nothing could be further from the truth.

Lutyens — the prolific and imaginative designer behind much of Imperial New Delhi, London's Cenotaph war memorial and scores of country houses in England and France — had the good luck to work at a time when a leisured élite gave him the space to realize his ideals. Though his reputation dipped following his 1944 death and the rise of modernism, a new generation of critics has discovered the enduring beauty of his creations.

Shy, reluctant to face facts, indifferent to his children and driven by his work, Ned Lutyens never taught his wife to understand his architecture. The humorless Emily, meanwhile, showed no interest in her husband's work and was unable to persuade him that any of her passions — literature, feminism, theosophy (an occult religion), pacifism — was worthwhile. Her "litany of grievances" began on her honeymoon and never ceased. Sex was an issue from day one and came to a complete halt some time between 1911-14. Ambitious and blinkered, Emily, the daughter of a Viceroy of India, sought out heroes. Her husband, with his obscure origins and shameless pursuit of the rich and powerful, was never to be one.

And yet, as Ridley capably demonstrates, the marriage survived through numerous lengthy separations and intense extramarital relationships. Divorce was less common then than now, and it suited both partners to live their lives in parallel compartments. Architecture kept Ned, sane and he "poured his imagination and emotion into other people's houses." Emily spent most of her life in a cocoon of mysticism and fashionable causes and in writing thousands of letters to her absent husband. In the end these letters, and the replies she received, became the marriage and form the basis of this book. Through their letters they expressed their true emotions. "You would not really love me if I was the kind of wife you sometimes imagine I ought to be," Emily once wrote to Ned.

The Architect and His Wife (Chatto & Windus; 484 pages) took Ridley, who is the couple's great-granddaughter, six years to research and write. The result is a balanced and accessible portrait of a marriage in which the architectural descriptions are informed but not arcane and the treatment of the cult of theosophy is balanced and mercifully brief. Ultimately, suggests Ridley, Ned and Emily Lutyens "perhaps learned to love one another as they were." The emphasis is on the word perhaps. Reflecting on her marriage, Emily considered that the thing of real value she gave her husband was complete freedom to pursue his art. A more disingenuous conclusion is hard to imagine, given Ned's lack of emotional support over many decades. It is Ridley's achievement that she navigates impartially through this minefield. But a reader may justifiably decide that the achitect achieved fame despite his wife.

• ROBIN KNIGHT
• Edwin Lutyens, architect and (secondly) husband