Sir Denys Louis Lasdun,CH, CBE (8 September 1914 – 11 January 2001) was an eminent British architect, the son of Nathan Lasdun 1879-1920, and Julie [nee Abrahams] 1884-1963. Probably his best known work is the Royal National Theatre, on London's South Bank of the Thames, which is a Grade II* listed building and one of the most notable examples of Brutalist design in the United Kingdom.
Lasdun studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and was a junior in the practice of Wells Coates. Like other Modernist architects, including Sir Basil Spence and Peter and Alison Smithson, Lasdun was much influenced by Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, but there was a gentler, more classical influence, too, from the likes of Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Lasdun's son is the author James Lasdun.
Before and after Second World War service in the army, Lasdun worked for a while with Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton practice, becoming a partner. In this period he also completed one private house in Paddington in Le Corbusier's style. After the war Lasdun worked with Lindsay Drake on the Hallfield Estate, which had been planned by Lubetkin and Tecton in a similar patterned, tightly planned idiom to his Spa Green and Priory Green Estates. Lasdun's Hallfield School was the first clue to his mature style, in its use of bare concrete and angularity, as well as its more human scale.