Preliminary wall designs, with studies in Soane's hand (2)

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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 wall elevations and working drawings for wall piers and side-aisle arches, c. February to March 1792 (7)

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Reference number

SM (35) volume 74/6 (36) volume 74/7

Purpose

Preliminary wall designs, with studies in Soane's hand (2)

Aspect

35 Plan and Sections of Bank Stock Office and laid-out wall elevations 36 Plan and Sections of Bank Stock Office (as designed) and laid-out wall elevations and (verso) pencil sketches for plan of central area and pier footprint

Scale

(35) to a scale (36) ¼ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

(35) as above, The Bank of England, dimensions given and (verso) Plan and Section of / alteration to Bank Stock Office (36) as above, The Bank of England, dimensions given and (pencil) calculations

Signed and dated

(35-36) datable to February-March 1792

Medium and dimensions

(35) Pen, pencil and pale red ink, partly pricked for transfer on wove paper with three fold marks (525 x 665) (36) pen, pencil, pale red ink and sepia wash, partly pricked for transfer on wove paper with six fold marks (529 x 666)

Hand

Soane office

Notes

Drawings 35 and 36 may be two of the drawings made in late February 1792 by Chawner or Meyer (Day Book) when the design for the hall was being finalised. They are a pair showing the hall's plan as executed with its four central piers and twelve half-piers on the perimeter.
On drawing 35 are some pencil sketches by Soane for the realised tripartite fluting on the faces of the piers and responds, and a small circle inscribed within a larger square in the centre of the plan indicating the realised stove and its base.
On the plan of drawing 36 there are some sketches by Soane for vaulting the ceiling, including cross vaults in the corner-bays (as realised), and an oval vault or lantern (not realised) over the southern end-bay. Soane also experiments on the plan with attaching half-columns (unrealised) to the inward facing sides of the piers and responds/ half-piers, to emphasise the central area of the plan and to give added character to the hall. There are also sketches in the margins for flared pilaster capitals (realised in much reduced versions) and pier footprints.
However the laid-out elevations for the south and east walls, in drawing 35, and north and west walls, in drawing 36, are only preliminary, showing blocked rustication rather than the realised banded rustication surmounted by moulded panels. Drawing 36 shows only a single door along the west wall leading to the adjacent Four Per Cent Office, and not the second blank door added for symmetry. On the wall elevations of this drawing are rough indications of the eventually realised clerestory lunettes and semi-circular arches in the corner bays.
The inverted arches of the existing and maintained cellar foundations are shown in the east elevation on drawing 35 (see also drawing 17).

Level

Drawing

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

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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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