[36] Preliminary wall designs, with studies in Soane's hand

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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 wall elevations and working drawings for wall piers and side-aisle arches, c. February to March 1792 (7)

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Reference number

SM volume 74/7

Purpose

[36] Preliminary wall designs, with studies in Soane's hand

Aspect

Plan and Sections of Bank Stock Office (as designed) and laid-out wall elevations and (verso) pencil sketches for plan of central area and pier footprint

Scale

¼ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

as above, The Bank of England, dimensions given and (pencil) calculations

Signed and dated

datable to February-March 1792

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, pale red ink and sepia wash, partly pricked for transfer on wove paper with six fold marks (529 x 666)

Hand

Soane office

Notes

This drawing and SM volume 74/6 may be two of the drawings made in late February 1792 by Chawner or Meyer (Day Book) when the design for the hall was being finalised. They are a pair showing the hall's plan as executed with its four central piers and twelve half-piers on the perimeter. On the plan of this drawing there are some sketches by Soane for vaulting the ceiling, including cross vaults in the corner-bays (as realised), and an oval vault or lantern (not realised) over the southern end-bay. Soane also experiments on the plan with attaching half-columns (unrealised) to the inward facing sides of the piers and responds/ half-piers, to emphasise the central area of the plan and to give added character to the hall. There are also sketches in the margins for flared pilaster capitals (realised in much reduced versions) and pier footprints.

The laid-out elevations for the south and east walls in SM volume 74/6, and north and west walls in this drawing, are only preliminary, showing blocked rustication rather than the realised banded rustication surmounted by moulded panels. This drawing shows only a single door along the west wall leading to the adjacent Four Per Cent Office, and not the second blank door added for symmetry. On the wall elevations of this drawing are rough indications of the eventually realised clerestory lunettes and semi-circular arches in the corner bays.

The inverted arches of the existing and maintained cellar foundations are shown in the east elevation on SM volume 74/6 (see also SM volume 74/29).

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).