Herbert Baker

Herbert Baker (1862 to 1946) was an English architect who became the dominant figure in South African architecture in the years around the Union of South Africa. Born in Kent, he trained in London and went to the Cape in 1891, where Cecil Rhodes became his patron and sent him to study ancient sites in Italy, Egypt and Greece. The result was a Neo-Classical manner that sat theatrically in the landscape and was meant to express imperial strength and permanence; the Union Buildings in Pretoria are its best known product. After 1912 he worked in India beside Edwin Lutyens on the government buildings of New Delhi, a collaboration that ended in a public quarrel. He was knighted in 1926 and received the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1927.