[12] Preliminary upper-rooms design, 10 March 1792

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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 upper-rooms designs, c. March 1792 (4)

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Reference number

SM volume 74/28

Purpose

[12] Preliminary upper-rooms design, 10 March 1792

Aspect

Transverse section looking north

Scale

bar scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

(pencil) calculations and (ink) dimensions given

Signed and dated

J. S. March 10^th 1792

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, pale red ink, sepia and pale blue washes, partly pricked for transfer on wove paper with two fold marks (507 x 633)

Hand

Soane

Notes

This drawing, cut across the centre of the hall, depicts the pair of proposed upper-storey rooms above the east and west arms of the hall. These two rooms would be lit by lunettes facing into the crossing beneath the lantern, while the doors at the ends would lead to landings over the hall's corner bays (see SM volume 74/31 and SM volume 74/26).

The drawing relates to SM volume 74/30. SM volume 74/30 precedes this drawing as it contains pencil sketches in the centre bay for a lower arch and a fanlight below the lantern, which is included here. This drawing delineates the lower wall elevation and fluted pilasters in more detail. Also the height of the arch beneath the upper room has been slightly raised, as has the height of the room itself. The roof above the upper room is slanted, presumably for better draining.

Soane also used this drawing to explore several unrealised decorative motifs for the hall's main body (also seen in SM volume 74/15 and SM volume 74/19), including a Vitruvian-scroll architrave and various floral and serpentine spandrel patterns.

SM volume 74/30 also contains several lightly penciled plan studies in the margins, all showing a domed central space.

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).