Design for the entrance facade of a public building, pencil, pen and sepia ink drawing, John Soane, 1780s

(Recto) Rough sketch of the elevation of the entrance facade of an unidentified public building, with a central flat-roofed pavilion and a domed pavilion on either side. (Verso) A partial elevation, in which the central pavilion has a gabled attic, and a roughly sketched partial plan.

This drawing was pasted into a copy of Sir John Soane's book Designs for Public and Private Buildings owned by Soane's assistant Charles James Richardson. Richardson built up a large collection of originals and copies (many of which he executed himself) of his master's designs, and distributed the bulk of them into two folio volumes, interspersed with the printed pages of the book. These volumes were bought by the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1863.

A group of eight Soane sketches (3306:6-9, 11-13, 15) are identified by Richardson as studies for a bridge, but according to du Prey (1985) only some of them could possibly be for such a structure, so he has catalogued them as designs for an unidentified public building. He compares the scheme to Soane's British Senate House, as well as to the forecourt facade of the Triumphal Bridge.

3306:15