[37] Variant design for the south elevation, c. 20 August 1809

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Royal Hospital, Chelsea for the Board of Commissioners, 1807-1835 (226)
    - Infirmary, August 1809 - November 1810, April - July 1818 and c.1833 (88)

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Reference number

SM volume 77/47

Purpose

[37] Variant design for the south elevation, c. 20 August 1809

Aspect

Perspective showing the south and west fronts, with rusticated basement arcade and two balconies on the ground and first storeys, with figures

Signed and dated

datable to c. 20 August 1809

Hand

Soane office

Notes

This drawing shows a three-storey structure, with a rusticated basement. To the west side is a smaller raised building with three arched windows and the cornice surmounted by a pediment, with antifixae at the corners. Round-arched arcading articulates the ground floor of the main building, as round-arched windows do the first and second floors. Scallop-shell antefixae adorn the cornice.

The design is further defined by a central rectangular skyline pedestal inscribed 'Chelsea Hospital Infirmary' which is bracketed by sculpted seated figures (possibly pensioners).

The arcade was presumably similar to that suggested by Soane in his report of 13 April 1810, for the benefit of patients' exercise during bad weather.

Darley refers to Soane's 'early vision of a spreading three-storey, arcaded block with strong rhythmic articulation of the great aqueduct that he and the Bishop had seen near Caserta - facing the unembanked river, flanked by the ornamental canals of Wren's scheme and ventilated by river breezes' which must surely be this design.

SM volume 77/52 shows a cross-section of the Infirmary design taken looking to the east and cut near its southern end, just before the T-shaped wings project. The 'Dead House' and 'Lodge' labelled on SM volume 77/55 can be seen to the sides, in pale grey. The proportions of the windows and their spacing also match this part of the building, as do those of the cornice antifixae. The downward slope of land away to the south indicates the direction of the section. Two balconies or walkways on the south front can be seen from this section, as shown in perspective on this drawing and SM volume 77/50 in particular.

Literature

Papers, presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Building of a New Infirmary, and the Leasing of Ground at Chelsea Hospital (ordered by the House of Commons) to be Printed, 20^th April 1809
G. Darley, John Soane, an accidental romantic, 1999, p.191

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.

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).