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John Soane and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Margaret Richardson
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Extract

John Soane has left us the text of twelve lectures which he gave at the Royal Academy, together with several volumes of preparatory drafts, and the notes he made during the long evenings from 1806–09 as he read the works of the principal theorists of his day. In addition we have his published works, entire private correspondence, notebooks and office documentation.

From his lectures we know his recommendations for good practice in general, as well as a range of personal preferences. We know really very little, however, about his personal intentions in architecture. We have the evidence on the one hand of his own idiosyncratic abstracted style, seen at its best in the façade of his Museum, at Dulwich Picture Gallery, at the lodge at Tyringham and in the interiors of the Bank, and on the other his preoccupation with the creation of monumental public buildings, which seem to have mattered most to him, as David Watkin has stated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 46 , 2003 , pp. 127 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2003

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References

Notes

1 Watkin, David, ‘Soane: The Royal Academician and the Public Realm’, in John Soane Architect, Master of Space and Light, ed. Richardson, Margaret and Stevens, Mary Anne (London, 1999), p. 38 Google Scholar.

2 Jones, Mark Wilson, ‘Designing the Roman Corinthian order’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2 (1989), pp. 35–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Watkin, David, Sir John Soane, Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge, 1996), p. 512 Google Scholar.

4 David Watkin, Sir John Soane, p. 512.

5 Palladio, Andrea, The Four Books of Andrea Palladio’s Architecture (London, 1738), p. 103 Google Scholar.

6 Marshall, George, The Ancient Buildings of Rome by Antony Desgodetz, 1 (London, 1771), p. 44 Google Scholar.

7 Quoted in Stroud, Dorothy, George Dance Architect 1741-1825 (London, 1971), p. 68 Google Scholar.

8 Quoted in Dorothy Stroud, George Dance, p. 70.

9 David Watkin, Sir John Soane, p. 527.

10 Worsley, Giles, Classical Architecture in Britain, The Heroic Age (New Haven and London, 1995), P. 298 Google Scholar.

11 David Watkin, Sir John Soane, pp. 511-12.

12 The Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. Garlick, Kenneth & Macintyre, Angus (New Haven and London, 1979), III, p. 767 Google Scholar. This quotation also continued ‘Byers borrowed the same drawing from Dance, copied it and sold a great number of copies of that as from his own measurement’. At least Soane was not out for commercial gain.

13 The Diary of Joseph Farington, VI, p. 2122.

14 The Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. Cave, Kathryn, X, p. 3610 Google Scholar.

15 Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, John Soane, The Making of an Architect (Chicago and London, 1982), pp. 225-27Google Scholar.

16 Soane Museum, Daybook, 9 October 1794-26 August 1795.

17 Quoted in Bolton, Arthur T., The Portrait of Sir John Soane, RA (London, 1927), p. 60 Google Scholar.

18 Bolton, The Portrait, p. 62. Copies of ‘Modern Goth’ and another skit had been privately printed and were currently in circulation. See Soane Museum, Private Correspondence, XIV, E.

19 Soane Museum, Private Correspondence, III-G1, 2.

20 Soane Museum, Soane Case 152/L1, p. 66.

21 See Bolton, Arthur T., A Short Account of the Evolution of the Design of the Tivoli Corner of the Bank of England, designed by Sir John Soane, RA, 1804-05 (Oxford, 1933)Google Scholar.

22 See studies by Christopher H. Woodward, architect, at the Soane Museum.

23 Britton, John, The Union of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting (London, 1827), pp. 38–40 Google Scholar.

24 Richardson, and Stevens, (eds), John Soane Architect, Master of Space and Light, Catalogue 37, p. 110 Google Scholar.

25 Soane, John, Memoirs of the Professional Life of an architect (privately printed 1835), p. 58 Google Scholar.

26 Crook, J. M. and Port, M. H., The History of the King’s Works, VI (London, 1973), p. 553 Google Scholar.

27 King’s Works, p. 553.

28 King’s Works, pp. 553-54.

29 Quoted in Arthur T. Bolton, The Portrait, p. 258.

30 See Catalogues of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: Mocatta in Vol. L-N [92] 1-2; Parke in Vol. O-R [28] 1-2; and Wightwick in Vol. T-Z [242] 1-2. See also T. Hardwick in Vol. G[94] 2, 3n, [95] 1.

31 Arthur T. Bolton, The Portrait, p. 282.

32 Margaret Richardson, ‘Soane’s Legacy’, in John Soane Architect, Master of Space and Light, p. 48.

33 John Soane Architect, Master of Space and tight, p. 53.