Preliminary longitudinal section without clerestory lighting

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1352)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (430)
      - Bank Stock Office, 1791-1793 (73)
        Preliminary and realised lantern dome designs (longitudinal and transverse sections), c. 1792 (7)

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Reference number

SM volume 74/27

Purpose

Preliminary longitudinal section without clerestory lighting

Aspect

13 Longitudinal section looking east

Scale

to a scale

Inscribed

(pencil) 4.1, 1.1½ (dimensions for pilasters)

Signed and dated

datable to 1792

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, pale red ink and sepia wash, partly pricked for transfer on wove paper with one fold mark and an additional sheet pasted onto centre of drawing along one edge (512 x 638)

Hand

Soane office

Notes

This drawing shows schematically the dimensions of the built hall and the lantern, with a central segmental arch and side semicircular arches, as well as details of the counters and the wall's banded rustication. However, no clerestory lights are shown in the vaults of the end-bays. Rather these are shown apparently as barrel vaults, the one on the left having pencil-sketched floral and panelled moulding underneath the 'flier' overlaying the upper portions above the line of the architrave. The peculiar absence of clerestory lighting, which would make the hall exceedingly dark at its ends, also appears in the almost identical drawing underneath the flap. On this alternative drawing for the upper portions the lantern is more decorative with the vertical stiles buttressing ornate arch braces, similarly seen in drawing 15.
It is difficult to know what Soane was thinking in having his assistants draw this exceptional and impractical design, or what purpose the flier served. However, this drawing may be related to the preliminary design in drawing 19, where the clerestory lunettes are also eliminated.

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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