Soane, Sir John( 1753 – 1837 )
Sketch of a design for the south side of the Lothbury Court, Bank of England, November 9 , 1799 ,
Sir John Soane’s Museum, Soane 10 / 3 / 6 , 56.5 68. 4 cm, Pencil, pen and brown ink with pink,
brown, and gray washesThe contemplation of a page by Sir John Soane initiates a discussion of the sketch as a form of
‘rough draft.’ Revealing Soane’s neoclassical intentions, this sketch presents the formalization and
subsequent correction of an image intended to be altered. He required the draft to act as a medium
for an evaluative design dialogue.
An architect of both private country houses and the largest architectural commission in England
of his time, the Bank of England, Soane emerged from humble beginnings. He was born in 1753 , a
country bricklayer’s son, which gave him early exposure to the building trades. Schooled at the Royal
Academy of Arts starting in 1771 , he met George Dance the Younger and James Peacock, Surveyor,
who encouraged him to visit Rome, 1778 – 1780. On this excursion he also stopped in Paris and visited
antiquities in southern France, Naples, and Sicily (Darley, 1999 ; Richardson and Stevens, 1999 ).
Sir John Soane began his practice with the design of country houses, but in 1794 public commissions
ensued starting with the House of Lords. Other projects followed, such as the Royal Entrance to the
House of Lords, Law Courts, the Privy Council Chamber at Whitehall, and the Board of Trade. An
advocate of French neoclassical architecture, he was influenced by the work of Borromini, Piranesi, and
projects by his former employer George Dance (Richardson and Stevens, 1999 ; Darley, 1999 ).
The design and building of the Bank of England was a long and complex project, beginning with
Soane’s appointment as Surveyor to the bank in 1788. After completing many parts of the building, in
1797 he began the design of Lothbury Court. Soane produced numerous schemes in drawing form for
the Roman-inspired courtyard and its façades, reworking the façade many times over a period of two
years (Schumann-Bacia, 1989 ; Trachtenberg and Hyman, 1986 ). This sketch, dated November 9,
1799 , and labeled as a design for the south side of the Lothbury Court (Figure 3. 6 ) is a slow, deliber-
ate, freehand ink drawing with pencil guidelines and numerous erasures and corrections.
Sketches cannot necessarily equate first conceptual thoughts with finished work, but they do capture
the process of ideas followed by evaluation and alteration, a process not altogether linear ( Jenny, 1989 ).
Architectural sketches, as compared to unfinished manuscripts, are distinctly part of a design process
that encourages possibilities and remains indeterminate. Soane’s extensive design process may indicate
that he worked through various façade iterations viewing the sketches as rough drafts. Since the sketch
was completed in the definitive medium of ink, it is possible that image was meant to be a finished
document and upon inspecting the form he made changes. As an erasure technique, one can see that
ink had been scratched off the surface where Soane changed his mind. The two arched niches are
delineated disparately on a symmetrical façade as he searched for alternatives. Dimensions were
changed as Soane used this sketch for design exploration. The ink wash and scratchy shadows helped
him to visualize the three-dimensional aspects of the façade. On the margins of the page, Soane stud-
ied and eliminated possible details, thoughts he certainly would not have included on a finished docu-
ment. He dated the sketch to recall the latest option. This was especially important considering the
many versions of this design and if he left the design for a few days while attending to other projects.
This sketch represents a ‘compositional’ stage of the process; it constitutes the incomplete and change-
able ‘pre-text’ as he was not searching for new constructs, but visually editing a proposed rough draft
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