1. William Richard Lethaby was an English architect and architectural historian whose ideas were highly influential on the late Arts and Crafts and early Modern movements in architecture, and in the fields of conservation and art education.
14 Facts About William Lethaby
1. 2.
William Lethaby won the Royal Institute of British Architects' Soane Medallion in 1879 and moved to London as Chief Clerk to architect Richard Norman Shaw.
3.
William Lethaby built Monkwood Cottage, Loughton, Essex, for his friend, Hubert Llewellyn Smith.
4.
In 1894 William Lethaby was appointed Art Inspector to the Technical Education Board of the newly formed London County Council.
5.
William Lethaby believed that this was an artificial distinction and sought to have both taught as equally valuable parts of the process of producing a high quality end-product.
6.
In 1901 William Lethaby was appointed the first Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art.
7.
William Lethaby effectively ceased architectural practice around this time, though he remained an immensely influential figure through his writings and teaching.
8.
At Westminster Abbey, William Lethaby was able to put into practice his belief in sympathetic and historically accurate restoration, conducting extensive research into the history of its structure and design and largely setting the template that the restoration and preservation of historic buildings was to follow for the rest of the century.
9.
William Lethaby died on 17 July 1931 at Bayswater in London.
10.
William Lethaby was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church at Hartley Wintney in Hampshire.
11.
William Lethaby was offered the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal award but turned it down.
12.
William Lethaby is the last person to have done so.
13.
William Lethaby has traditionally been seen by figures such as Nikolaus Pevsner as significant primarily in his role as a precursor of the early modern movement.
14.
William Lethaby was the acknowledged theorist behind the work of Ernest Gimson and the group of architect-craftsmen who worked with him in Sapperton, Gloucestershire, intent to found a "school of rational building".