Designs for the main entrance to the New State Paper Office, May 1830 (2)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: New State Paper Office, Duke Street, Westminster, 1829-34 (207)

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Reference number

SM (65) 82/1/50 (66) 82/1/49

Purpose

Designs for the main entrance to the New State Paper Office, May 1830 (2)

Aspect

65 Elevation of the main entrance with detail of voussoirs in Soane's hand 66 Comparative elevation of the main entrance; (verso) preliminary plan of the library with section through skylights and, in Soane's hand, section through a wall and bookcase

Scale

(65) bar scale of 1/4 inch to 1 foot (66) bar scale of 1/3 inch to 1 foot; (verso) bar scale of 1/8 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

65 (in Soane's hand) labelled: Floor, 9 Voussoirs, 1, 2, 3, 4, This Door &^c / is in its proportions / like Vignola's book, Here is another example / that a design originally on a / large scale cannot be copied on a small scale / - the door in the present case would not be more than about 7 feet high, which would / be preposterously low 66 (in Soane's hand) some dimensions given; (verso, in Soane's hand) books (twice) and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

May 1830
(65, 66) 6 May 1830 (66 verso) 8 June 1829

Medium and dimensions

(65, 66) Pen, sepia, grey, olive green and pink washes, (66 verso: pen, pink and yellow washes) pricked for transfer on wove paper (359 x 265, 357 x 250)

Hand

(65, 66) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) and (65, 66 verso) Soane

Notes

Drawing 65 shows the Duke Street entrance 'in its proportions like Vignola's book'. The reference is to Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola's Regola delli cinque ordini d'architettura, of which Soane owned at least seven different editions in Italian, French and English. The entrance is round-arched with double doors and a large fanlight. Soane's statement that 'here is another example that a design originally on a large scale cannot be copied on a small scale', as well as highlighting the inappropriateness of the Vignolan door to the new building, also refers to Goulburn's instruction to model the New State Paper Office on the Banqueting House (q.v. drawings 41-42). The entrance in drawing 66 is more loosely based on Vignola's and is adjusted for scale, being square-headed with a single door and no overlight. Both entrances employ the Doric order. Soane's detail on drawing 65 also shows a square-headed design - perhaps the initial thought that led to the design in drawing 66. The verso of drawing 66 has a preliminary design for the library with four semi-cylindrical skylights shown in section. The approved design has five square-based skylights (q.v. drawings 15-38).

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).