Design for Victoria and Albert Museum, plan by Francis Fowke, 1865, with revisions by Henry Scott, ca. 1868

Lithograph on paper, with additions in and pen and ink, indicating which parts of a proposal for completing the Victoria and Albert Museum were to be carried out. The lithograph of the Museum site is identical to E.1352-1979; the hand-drawn additions differ. In the print, a large quadrangle is shown in the centre of the trapezium-shaped plot, fronted by a cour d’honneur to the south. The north side of the quadrangle is formed by an apsed block containing a lecture theatre; the block is shaded yellow, signifying ‘in progress’. The east and west sides of the quadrangle, galleries and the greater part of two display courts beyond the east side of the quadrangle, and ranges beyond the north side of the quadrangle, are shaded blue-green to signal ‘in occupation’. To the south, the south side of the quadrangle and blocks flanking the northern part of the cour d’honneur are shaded pale red, ‘to be proceeded with’; in the north-west corner of the plot, the rectangular Science Schools building (now the Henry Cole wing) is also shaded pale red. The curving colonnades fronting Cromwell Road, however, are indicated ‘to be postponed’. Dashed lines indicate a tunnel under Exhibition Road. Hand-drawn additions in red ink include a detailed plan of the Science Schools (now the Henry Cole Wing), with its large open stairwell; a second or revised tunnel under Exhibition Road from the centre of the Science Schools; toilet blocks adjoining the Refreshment Rooms; straight-sided ranges inked over both curving colonnades; and an altered axis for two courts in the south-east corner of the site. Print dated November 1865; key; scale bar; some measurements.

Dated 1865, and shaded to show which parts of the architectural scheme had, were being or would be carried out, the lithographed background of this proposal for the Victoria and Albert Museum is identical to E.1352-1979 (please see for a full description of Francis Fowke’s design). However, in the case of this plan the hand-drawn alterations revising the scheme are more extensive. These are perhaps attributable to Henry Scott, Fowke’s successor at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and include a detailed plan of the Science Schools (now the Henry Cole Wing) in the top left-hand corner of the plot, toilet blocks adjoining the Refreshment Rooms, and the re-angling of the Architectural Courts (marked Q; now the Cast Courts, 46a-b) to align them with Cromwell Road, all of which are shown as built. Likewise drawn by hand are straight-sided ranges replacing the curving colonnades proposed by Fowke, but these were not carried out: no outer court was ever created. Intriguingly, both the lithograph and the hand-drawn alterations also depict a tunnel passing from the Science Schools under Exhibition Road.

E.1353-1979