A period of enforced rest on account of a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, combined with a sheltered early life in Surrey, helped Lutyens gain an in-depth knowledge of traditional building methods and sketching skills. After an abortive enrolment at the National Art Training School and a brief connection with an architectural firm, Lutyens set up his own architectural practice in 1889 at the age of 19. In the early stages of his career Lutyens designed many country houses, often with gardens designed by his mentor Gertrude Jekyll. He was heralded as a new light in British rural architecture, and courted by such establishment icons as Country Life and Edward Hudson, owner of Lindisfarne Castle, which Lutyens restored.

In April 1897 Lutyens married Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton, daughter of the late Viceroy of India, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. They had five children, but the marriage experienced a period of near-estrangement on account of Emily’s heavy involvement with Theosophy and devotion to the spiritual leader Jiddu Krishnamurti. Later, Emily established an all-India Home Rule movement, somewhat at odds with Lutyens’ role as architect for the new capital. They were reconciled in the early 1930s, after Lutyens’ close friendship with Lady Sackville-West.

Lutyens sought for some time larger-scale international works, and was successful in designing the Johannesburg Art Gallery (1911-40) and the British Pavilion at the international exhibition in Rome (1911). In 1912 Lutyens was invited to join the Commission responsible for the design of New Delhi, given the announcement the previous year that the Government of India would move there from Calcutta. Lord Crewe, the Indian Secretary, was familiar with Lutyens’ work in Hampstead. Lutyens travelled to India in 1912, and explored Delhi, Bombay and Simla, returning several times as he mapped out his vast city plan. The Viceroy’s House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, official residence of the President of India, is Lutyens’ masterpiece. Despite his initial misgivings about Mughal architecture, the finished building fuses Mughal and Hindu elements, as well as the Buddhist railing from the stupa at Sanchi around the central dome. The building contains approximately 340 rooms, and is built on an area of 1.3 square kilometres. The garden was designed by Lutyens. During the building process, Lutyens and his fellow architect Herbert Baker made annual winter visits to India until forced to cease for the duration of the First World War. This and other delays meant that the Viceroy’s House was not completed until 1929, and the city inaugurated in 1931, a ceremony which Lutyens attended with his wife.

Lutyens is also remembered in Europe for his work with the Imperial War Graves Commission, and the design of the Cenotaph on Whitehall, the war cemeteries including Étaples and the Faubourg d'Amiens cemetery at Arras, and, perhaps most striking of all, the Thiepval Arch, memorial to the missing soldiers from the Battle of the Somme.