[14] Design for an octagonal house, 1779, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Country houses
  - Wyke House, Syon Hill, Isleworth, designs for a house for John Robinson, unexecuted (23)
    - Third design for a house, unexecuted (5)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 37/89

Purpose

[14] Design for an octagonal house, 1779, unexecuted

Aspect

Section of a three-storey octagonal building, formed around a central drum. The principal façade has a Tuscan, balustraded portico, and this is surmounted by giant Corinthian columns, with pedestals supporting sphinxes above. The rear façade has raised giant Corinthian columns, with pedestals supporting sphinxes above. On the ground storey there is a central part cantilevered staircase, surrounded by an arcade. Towards the principal front there is a barrel vaulted room. On the first storey there is a central octagonal hall, with a balustraded colonnade, and this is flanked by rooms with colonnaded screens. On the first -storey there is a central octagonal hall, with a balustraded colonnade, and above this there is a domed ceiling with a conical oculus. The hall is flanked by passage ways and rooms. The attic-storey level contains garret rooms, which flank the central octagonal drum

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/2 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Section of the Octagon Plan on the line A. B. (underwritten in pencil) / at Syon Hill for John Robinson Esqr (in the hand of William Adam) No. 65 (brown ink) / Mr. R. has a fair copy (brown ink) / [_ _ _ _ _ _ _] [_ _ _ _ _] (pencil) / Mr Watt 2 Designs (pencil) / Mr H_ _ ley Castle Designs (pencil) / Mr Stevensons(?) [_ _ _ _ _] [_ _ _ _ _ _] Castle (pencil) and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

November 1779
Adelphi / 18.t Nov.r 1779

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and coloured washes including pink and lemon yellow on laid paper (538 x 365)

Hand

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

Verso

2 / 2

Watermark

J KOOL surmounted by a fleur-de-lis within a crowned cartouche

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index, p. 18
King, 2001, Volume II, p. 134
Rowan, 1985, 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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).