Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820-77) was a polymath - architect, administrator, designer, writer and connoisseur. From his role as project manager to the Great Exhibition of 1851 to his final years advising the South Kensington Museum on its collections, he played a key part in mid-Victorian developments in architecture, design and museum display. He worked with leading figures of his time, including I. K. Brunel, George Gilbert Scott, Herbert Minton and Henry Cole. Owen Jones was his lifelong friend.

This is the first full-length study of Wyatt's work. It includes detailed discussion of his work at the Crystal Palace (in Hyde Park and at Sydenham), at Paddington Station, and in the design of the India Office in Whitehall, now part of the Foreign Office. It also assesses his writings and book designs. All these achievements are set in the context of the shifting energies and debates of his age, to which he made a distinctive and enduring contribution.