A review of the professional life of Sir John Soane, Archt. ... With some remarks on his genius and productions. Read at the ... meeting of the Institute of British architects ...6th February, 1837 / [Thomas Leverton Donaldson].
- Thomas Leverton Donaldson
- Date:
- 1837
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A review of the professional life of Sir John Soane, Archt. ... With some remarks on his genius and productions. Read at the ... meeting of the Institute of British architects ...6th February, 1837 / [Thomas Leverton Donaldson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![years, and similar feelings at a later period, neutralised the advantages, which might be derived from the lectures on Architecture. The profession now look with intense anxiety to the appointment of a successor to Sir John Soane; and anticipate, from their well-qualified Brethren in that Institution, a Professor who shall do justice to a subject inferior to none other in importance, and second to none in extent and the general interest which it carries wdth it. In the later years of his professional practice, Mr. Soane erected the following public edifices :—considerable additions to Chelsea Hospital—houses in Regent Street— the National Debt Office—the Freemason’s new Hall, at- tached to the Hall in Great Queen Street—a new royal entrance to the House of Lords—the Courts of Law in Westminster—the Board of Trade and Council Offices at Whitehall, and Churches at Walworth, Bethnal Green, and Mary-le-bone. These are more distinctly the ‘produc- tions of the later style of our Architect, and subjected him to severe criticism. Indeed, it must he owned that among some qualities, which we must recognise as the fruits of a well-stored mind, there are the peculiar defects to which we have already alluded; and which, we fear it must he ackowdedged, have not added to that well-deserved reputa- tion, which he had acquired as the Architect of the Bank of England. His last work, the State Paper Office, in Saint James’s Park, with many peculiarities, is still a fine production : the plan is arranged with his usual skill, and the details of his fa9ades only require greater vigor and boldness of profile, in order to make this edifice rank with the masterpieces of Italian art. In 1828, Sir John Soane published a volume of-designs for public and private buildings, the engravings of which arc of so inferior a nature, that justice is not done to his ])owcrs ; and from want of correct drawing, his](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28741456_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
