[23] Finished drawing for the first storey of the library, c1788, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Public buildings
  - King's College, Cambridge, designs for a chapel altar, new college buildings and a library, 1768-88, unexecuted (28)
    - Design and finished drawings for the third scheme for the library, c1778, unexecuted (5)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 31/20

Purpose

[23] Finished drawing for the first storey of the library, c1788, unexecuted

Aspect

Plan of the first storey of a building with a central, seven-by eleven-bay block with a recessed bow front set behind a columnar screen. To the rear there is a recessed canted front. The central section of the block is formed with an octagonal room at the front of the building and a circular room to the rear. These are connected via single-bay links and a central circular room, with single bays also leading to the eastern and western wings. The principal circular room and the flanking wings contain bookcases, and there is a circular staircase set within the rear octagonal room. The central block is flanked by single-bay projections containing staircases, which connect to curved link bays with tripartite windows. To the west of the central building the link bay connects to a nine-bay building containing a central, circular ante room and this is flanked by rooms for the librarians and clerks. To the rear there is a curved double staircase. The eastern link bay leads to the Senate House

Scale

bar scale of 3/4 inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

Plan of the One pair Story / (and in the hand of William Adam, underwritten in pencil) of a Library for Kings College Cambridge / Clerks room / Clerks room / Anti room / Librarians room / Librarians room / Corridore / Library / 24 wide / 102 ft long / Library / 24 wide / Staircase / Library / Library / 102 ft long / Library / 24 wide / Senate House / No. 22 (pencil) and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

c1788
c1788

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash within a single ruled border on laid paper (742 x 491)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Robert Morison, with part title inscription in the hand of William Adam

Verso

3 / 3

Watermark

Fleur-de-lis within a crowned cartouche / JWHATMAN

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, pp. 173-79; Index, p. 6
King, 2001, Volume II, p. 54
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

Level

Drawing

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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