Lutyens’ British Embassy Celebrates 75 Years

British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir David Manning hosted a reception October 16 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Sir Edwin Lutyens-designed British Embassy Residence on Washington, D.C.’s “Embassy Row,” on Massachusetts Avenue. Lutyens was the 1925 AIA Gold Medal recipient. Manning paid tribute to the renowned British architect, describing Lutyens as "arguably the greatest British Architect of the 20th Century." The Embassy Residence, the only Lutyens design in the U.S., is "an architectural jewel, and one of the most striking diplomatic buildings in the world," Manning said. In honor of the occasion, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office turned over 64 of Lutyen’s original working drawings, which had been stored in the embassy basement, to the British Architectural Library's Drawings Collection in London. Jack Pringle, Hon. FAIA, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, accepted the drawings on behalf of the library, which hopes they now can be widely enjoyed.