Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
London: Parliament House (designs for). Part of an elevation showing a seven-bay portico on top of steps with sculpture-filled pediment and a shallow dome above. It is flanked by two small domes with a five-bay wing terminated in a domed pavilion and portico. Above on the sheet is part of an outline plan in chalk.
Browse
Reference number
Adam vol.7/4
Purpose
London: Parliament House (designs for). Part of an elevation showing a seven-bay portico on top of steps with sculpture-filled pediment and a shallow dome above. It is flanked by two small domes with a five-bay wing terminated in a domed pavilion and portico. Above on the sheet is part of an outline plan in chalk.
Aspect
Elevation, plan (part)
verso plan
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1760
Medium and dimensions
Pen, black chalk
207 x 295, folded four times, vertically
Hand
James Adam
Verso
Pen and black chalk plan for a building composed of portico, rectangular hall with niches and screen, with three circular halls adjoining. This plan is probably a related scheme to that on the recto and the use of large circular spaces would suggest an early version of the design in Adam vol.7/3; it may have been sketched out before James Adam left London in 1760. Beside this are details of a courtyard plan.
Notes
The elevation here is based on the plan in Adam vol.7/3, and like that drawing it was probably executed in late 1760. The use of relief sculpture panels is characteristic of the Roman designs of both Robert and James Adam, but is absent in James Adam's ultimate designfor the Parliament House of 1763 (see A. A. Tait, Robert Adam: drawings and imagination, Cambridge, 1993, p.63, fig.52).
Literature
Repr. A. A. Tait, Robert Adam: drawings and imagination, Cambridge, 1993, p.65, fig.54; D. Stillman, English Neo-classical Architecture, 2 vols., London, 1988, vol.1, p.58, fig.11
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