Dolls House World Magazine Issue 370 Back Issue

One day you’re designing eighty square miles of offices, avenues and palaces in New Delhi. The next you’re back in London and a Princess is asking you to design a little doll’s house for the Queen.
The request must have promoted renowned architect Edwin Lutyens to raise his eyebrows higher than the Cenotaph he had designed the previous year.
But the untidy, bespectacled Lutyens accepted this relatively minor commission with enthusiasm. By the time a large private dinner party, at the Savoy no less, was arranged with friends and artists to discuss the project, his creative genius was in full flow. He made endless notes on every menu card available, even covering napkins and tablecloths in plans and drawings.
Within weeks he came up with a completely original design. Nothing of the exterior or interior was based on any existing royal palace. And here’s the wonderful thing: he had a vision of his dream house.
As Mary Stewart-Wilson recalls in the fascinating book Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House: “It became in essence the very house that, had his private life been otherwise, he would have liked to live in himself.” Most miniaturists will be able to identify with that.
Lutyens took over the drawing room of the family home for two years to work on his house. His 13-year-old daughter, Mary, was trusted to unpack and arrange the tiny pieces that arrived by carrier almost hourly, and the two developed quite a bond over the project. The Queen visited often to check on progess, arranging and playing with, as she called them in her diary, “the beautiful miniature things”.
As the house celebrates its centenary this year, amidst our admiration for the genius that walks the halls and the skills that resonate down the years, we should remember that at the heart of this magnificent house is something simple: a love for small things.