Lasdun, Sir Denys
LASDUN, SIR DENYS
LASDUN, SIR DENYS (1914–2001), English architect. Denys Lasdun was born in London, the son of a businessman who was the cousin of the Russian stage designer Leon Bakst; his mother was the granddaughter of the Australian artist Louis Abrahams. He was educated at Rugby and at the Architectural Association School. Lasdun worked for a time with the Tecton group, the architectural firm founded by Berthold Lubetkin which helped to launch modern architecture in Britain. Lasdun wished to produce an organic architecture "that inhibits neither the notion of growth and change nor advances in technology." His designs included working class housing schemes in Paddington and Bethnal Green, London as well as luxury flats in St. James'. Other buildings of Lasdun's are the Royal College of Physicians (1960), the new University of East Anglia (1962), the Sports Center, Liverpool University (1963), the Social Center, University of Leicester (1963), and his project for the National Theater and Opera, London (1967). One of the best-known modern British architects, Lasdun was knighted in 1976 and made a Companion of Honour (ch) in 1995.
add. bibliography:
odnb; W.J.R. Curtis, Denys Lasdun: Architecture, City, Landscape (1994).