Herbert Baker

Career

South Africa

In 1893, Baker was named Diocesan architect for Cape Town and built several churches; he also acted as the project architect for the English firm Dunn & Watson, overseeing their Cape Town projects. In 1899, he formed a partnership with his former Royal Academy classmate, Francis Edward Masey. The firm, Baker & Masey, designed numerous buildings; many Cape Town-area buildings attributed to Baker before 1910 were actually by Masey. Also during this time, Baker and Masey designed several buildings in Rhodesia, although complete records are unavailable.

After Rhodes died in 1902, and as the Boer War was ending, High Commissioner Alfred Milner asked Baker to move to Johannesburg to help with post-war construction. This made Baker a member of 'Milner's Kindergarten', a group of British civil servants that Milner established to build and manage the colony. From Johannesburg, Baker co-managed Baker & Masey; in Johannesburg, he formed Baker, Masey & Sloper with the architect E.W. Sloper, who had been his assistant in Cape Town. In 1906, Sloper left South Africa and Baker partnered with Francis Fleming to form Baker & Fleming; in Cape Town, Franklin Kaye Kendall was added as a partner to form Baker & Kendall. In 1915, James Morris was added to form Baker, Kendall & Morris. Baker formally withdrew from this firm in 1918, but by then he was no longer in South Africa. Pretoria was to become the administrative centre for the new government of the Union of South Africa and, in 1909, Baker was commissioned to design the Government Building. He created the grand Union Buildings. In 1912, once they were complete, he left South Africa, designing buildings, and/or approving designs, from afar.

India

In 1911, King George V announced that the capital of India would be moved from Calcutta to the more central city of Delhi. The Viceroy struck a committee to organize the move and new construction. Baker's old friend, Edwin Lutyens, won the contract to design the government buildings and residences, but the committee felt he needed a collaborator. Baker was now famous throughout the British Empire and the Union Buildings were what the committee had in mind. Hearing this, Baker quickly wrote an article for The Times, saying that the project should embody the ideal of British rule in India, and that the buildings should blend Grecian and Roman architecture with Indian architecture and symbols. Baker was invited to be Lutyens' collaborator.

It was agreed that Lutyens would handle the design for the city's lay-out, the Viceroy's House and the war memorial, India Gate. Baker would design the Secretariat Building and the MPs bungalows; together, they would build the Parliament Building. Their fee was 5% of the total cost of the project. Lutyens arrived in Calcutta in 1912; Baker went on an architectural tour of Italy and arrived in Calcutta in 1913.

While the two men were old friends, they would have a bitter falling-out over the fact that Baker's positioning of the Secretariat Building interfered with the view of the Viceroy's House; Lutyen's had misjudged the effect of Baker's gradient and, despite his appeals to the committee, was unable to have it changed. When they returned to England in 1915, the feud continued and became very public. Writing of the New Delhi project, The Architectural Review, among others, heaped praise on Lutyens' work and dismissed Baker's in insulting and demeaning terms. Baker not only maintained a dignified silence but, when Lutyens died in 1944, wrote that his talents were equal to those of Christopher Wren. The incident appeared to destroy Baker's confidence; none of his post-Delhi buildings met the standard of his previous work.

World War I Cemeteries & Memorials

While the friendship between the two men would not recover, Baker and Lutyens worked together again when, in 1918, and along with Reginald Blomfield, they were appointed as the Principal Architects to the Imperial War Graves Commission, the organization responsible for properly laying to rest the thousands of fallen soldiers of the British Commonwealth after World War I. The three men were given the enormous task of designing hundreds of cemeteries, mainly in France and Belgium. There were no budgetary restrictions but the job had to be done quickly. A team of 17 architects was assembled; when needed, Baker chose as his assistants William Harrison Cowlishaw, Arthur Hutton, Noel Rew and his former student Gordon Leith. Baker completed 112 cemeteries, extensions to existing cemeteries, and memorial structures in France, one cemetery in Belgium and 24 memorials in England. The best-known of these are the Loos Memorial to the Missing, the Neuve-Chapelle Indian Memorial, the Delville Wood South African National Memorial and the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing which, with 12,000 graves, remains the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world.

Kenya

In 1920, Kenya became a Colony of the British Empire, with Nairobi as its capital. At the end of World War I, it was merely the supply depot for the Uganda Railway and was nothing more than some wood and iron buildings—banks, churches, a theatre, a school, a hospital and some administrative buildings. To create a master plan for the new city, the Nairobi Municipal Council commissioned the South African engineer Frank Walton Jameson but, in 1925, the new Governor of Kenya, Edward Grigg, brought in Herbert Baker and would later refer to the city's plan as the "Baker-Jameson proposals". The planning of Nairobi was controversial as it clearly laid out racial segregation. Indian immigration and land ownership were restricted and there were mounting tensions between Africans, Indians and Europeans. Baker's solution for what he called the "Green City in the Sun" was the design of imposing, dominant Imperial structures placed on hilltops. He spent five years in Kenya. Assisted by the South African architect Jan Hoogterp, Baker undoubtedly designed numerous buildings, and it is known that he built many schools, however records indicate only his best-known structures such as the Prince of Wales School, Government House, the Supreme Court Building and Nairobi City Hall.

The Bank of England

Through the 1920s and into the 1930s, Baker built numerous significant structures in England, mostly in London. His final building would be the Bank of England building, a project that would permanently cast a pall on his reputation.

In 1833, Sir John Soane completed the bank’s head office, a three-acre structure, built bit-by-bit, of interior halls, courtyards, domes and shadowy courts behind windowless, fortress-like walls. By 1920, this design was no longer fit for purpose; the bank’s staff had grown from 1,200 to 4,000. It needed offices, more light, a more organized, businesslike structure, and more public access. Baker was chosen (over Luytens) to build the new structure; he was told it needed to convey “strength, permanence and reliability”. The only way to achieve this was by demolishing the entire building.

Baker was an admirer of Soane. He also knew that Soane’s building, nicknamed the 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street', was much loved. He went to great lengths to respect his predecessor, recreating Soane’s original classic symbolism and creative flourishes, even copying and repositioning entire spaces. He undertook the largest creative commission of that time, hiring Charles Wheeler to create numerous statues and the Russian artist Boris Anrep to create murals and mosaics. He kept the outer walls and re-used Soane’s columns and friezes. Soane’s foundation had been built over Roman ruins; Baker excavated these and used several found pieces. He used the new technology of steel framing for stability, created new tube staircases for the public, opened domes and expanded the entrance. He topped the structure with a golden statue of Shakespeare’s Ariel, representing the spirit of the bank.

Despite Baker’s efforts, the Bank of England building, completed in 1938, was savaged by critics, who called it “pompous”. Summing up the opinion of many members of the public, and Baker’s professional peers, the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner called the demolition of Soane’s building “the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London, of the 20th century”. With another world war approaching and few major projects expected, and having reached age 76, Baker retired.

Personal life and death

In 1904, Baker married his cousin, Florence Edmeades (1878-1965). They had four children. In 1914, Florence's father-in-law, Major-General Henry Edmeades, was killed in battle; in 1916, Baker commissioned the artist Christopher Whall to create a five-light window dedicated to Edmeades in St Mildred's Church, Nurstead, Kent.

Baker's love of symbolism in his designs has been attributed to the fact that he was a Freemason; he was also deeply religious.

Baker had inherited his father's estate and retired to Owletts, where he wrote his autobiography, Architecture & Personalities, which was published in 1944. He bequeathed Owletts to the National Trust, and lived there until his death. Despite opposition from the Royal Academy of Arts, the Dean of Westminster considered Baker the "Architect of the Commonwealth" and offered burial in Westminster Abbey. Charles Wheeler gathered signatures of support and, on February 13, 1946, Baker was buried in the abbey's nave, in an ashes casket made from a cherry tree in his garden.

Honours

Baker received a knighthood (in the 1926 King's Birthday Honours List), was elected to the Royal Academy, received the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal in 1927, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Witwatersrand and an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Oxford University.

In 2026, members of Baker's family established the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust, to promote and protect "excellence in traditional building techniques and heritage craft skills" and support "future generations of artists, makers, and heritage professionals."