Working drawings for the old and new buildings, July 1830 (2)

Explore Collections

You are here: CollectionsOnline / Working drawings for the old and new buildings, July 1830 (2)

Browse

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)

Use of images and copyright
Enlarge this Image

Print this image in A4 view

Reference number

SM (77) 82/1/63 (78) 82/1/62

Purpose

Working drawings for the old and new buildings, July 1830 (2)

Aspect

77 Plan of the intended State Paper Office / upon the Old Site where old House / originally stood 78 Plan of the Old / & new Foundation of / State Paper Office

Scale

(77, 78) bar scales of 1/9 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

77 as above, labelled: Area (3 times), (pencil) Vaults, Duke Street and dimensions given 78 as above, labelled: Area (twice), Vaults, Duke Street and dimensions given

Signed and dated

July 1830
(77) L.I.F. / July 2^nd 1830 (78) July 5^th 1830

Medium and dimensions

(77) Pen, grey and pink washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper (270 x 522) (78) pen, grey and pink washes, pricked for transfer on laid paper (301 x 484)

Hand

(77, 78) ?clerk of works

Watermark

(78) W Weatherley 1829

Notes

Drawings 77 and 78 show how Soane's new building is much more compact and regular than the old house. More importantly, they show that the new building is insulated - that is, free-standing - whereas the former house had shared a party wall with the Army Arrears Office to the east. Soane increased the width of the passageway between the old building and Mr Farquhar's house from 4'6'' to between 11'6'' and 12'. The reason for this was almost certainly to better secure the New State Paper Office against the risk of fire.

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).