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Description: | Numbering some 650,000 items, this collection celebrates British architects from the Renaissance to the present day as well as important drawings by foreign architects, most notably nearly 300 designs and sketches by Andrea Palladio, most of which were formerly in the collection of Inigo Jones, whose work is also here. The work of several thousand architects is represented in the collection.
A number of architects commemorated the foundation of the Institute (from 1837 the Royal Institute) of British Architects in 1834 by donating examples of their work, a practice continued up to the present. The earliest drawing dates from c 1520 and is a design attributed to Thomas Berty for Bishop Fox's chantry in Winchester Cathedral. An important collection of designs for and record drawings of English country houses by Robert and John Smythson dating from the late 16th century was acquired in 1926 and the Palladio/ Inigo Jones drawings, accompanied by designs by John Webb and Lord Burlington, arrived in 1894.
All the great British architects from the 1660s to 1800 are represented by individual drawings or collections, from Robert Adam to Christopher Wren, including Colen Campbell, Sir William Chambers, James Gibbs, William Kent, Sir John Soane, William Talman, John Vardy and various members of the Wyatt family, to name but a few. The vast majority of the Drawings Collection, however, derives from the 19th and 20th centuries. The most important individual collections include those of Adams, Holden & Pearson, William Burges, Sir Ninian Comper, George Devey, Erno Goldfinger, Oliver Hill, Sir Edwin Lutyens, J.B. Papworth, the Pugin family, the Scott family, Tecton, C.F.A. Voysey, Alfred Waterhouse, Clough Williams-Ellis and Philip Webb. Individual designs or smaller groups include work by Wells Coates, Connell, Ward & Lucas, Sir Norman Foster and Partners, Berthold Lubetkin, Richard Rogers Partnership, Quinlan Terry and YRM. There are significant numbers of designs by foreign architects, including Etienne-Louis Boullee, Le Corbusier, Giancarlo De Carlo, Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as Palladio.
The Drawings Collection also includes topographical drawings, the most important of which are probably the views of Greek antiquities painted 1751-3 by James 'Athenian' Stuart, later engraved for the Antiquities of Athens, and William Daniell's views of India, but many architects travelled Europe and the near East, recording their impressions in sketchbooks or watercolours now in the Collection. There are also 10,000 architectural engravings, principally of British subjects. In addition, portraits and busts of architects, models, drawing instruments, drawing office furniture, medals, architectural fragments and casts as well as miscellaneous objects connected with the architectural profession are collected and housed in the Drawings Collection.
Objects and portraits Models, drawing instruments, drawing office furniture, medals and portraits are also included in the collections of the British Architectural Library.
To conform with the International Confederation of Architectural Museums' declaration non-British archives are not now collected and Scottish architectural archives are deemed to fall withint he scope of the Scottish National Monuments Record. | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | Address: | 66 Portland Place
London Great Britain (UK),
W1N 4AD | FAX: | 020 7486 3797 | Telephone: | 020 7307 3653 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:4920 | Go to resource |
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