[3] Study for proposed triple-lantern design

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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 (1356)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (431)
      - Bank Stock Office, 1791-1793 (73)
        Preliminary column-flue designs, November 1791 to c. March 1792 (8)

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Reference number

SM volume 74/18

Purpose

[3] Study for proposed triple-lantern design

Aspect

Longitudinal section looking west

Scale

bar scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

dimensions given (verso) Section of Bank Stock Office

Signed and dated

datable to December 1791 to January 1792

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and sepia wash, partly pricked for transfer on laid paper with three fold marks (516 x 632)

Hand

attributed to Thomas Chawner or Frederick Meyer, with additions by Soane

Notes

This drawing features the three lanterns. The sketches on the left hand side of the longitudinal section are in Soane's hand, and were probably first drawn in late November or early December 1791 by Chawner or Meyer (Day Book). They record the key decision to abandon the triple-lantern scheme and instead to vault over the end-bays and presumably use clerestory lighting, as preliminarily designed in SM volume 74/17, dated 21 January 1792 and eventually realised in the built hall. Additional sketches also show preliminary ideas for a segmental arch in the end-bays (realised in semicircular form) and a Vitruvian-scroll fascia along the wall (repeated in later preliminary drawing SM volume 74/17, but not realised).

The Day Book in Soane's office shows intensive efforts from 17 November to 6 December 1791 by Thomas Chawner and Frederick Meyer to draw surveys, plans, sections, and perspectives. Versions of the proposed design were presented to the Bank of England's directors on 24 November and 6 December 1791.

Literature

J. Summerson, 'The evolution of Soane's Bank Stock Office in the Bank of England', The unromantic castle, 1990, p. 148, ill. 126

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).