Robert Adam's London by Dr Frances Sands

The iconic eighteenth-century architect Robert Adam was based in London for more than half of his life and made more designs for this one city than anywhere else in the world. This book reviews a wide variety of his designs for London, highlighting lesser known buildings as well as familiar ones. Each of Adam’s projects explored in this book is plotted on Horwood’s map of London (1792-99), enabling the reader to recognise Adam’s work as they move around the city, as well as to envisage London as if more of his ingenious designs had been executed or survived demolition. Dr Frances Sands is Curator of Drawings and Books at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Sir John Soane’s Museum holds 9,000 Adam drawings in its collection. These drawings produced by the Adam brothers represent 80% of the surviving Adam Office drawings in the world.

Sir John Soane purchased this remarkable treasure-trove of architectural history in 1833 for the sum of £200. The drawings were shipped from Edinburgh to London by the cheapest means possible, as deck cargo aboard a merchant ship. Despite spending the journey with little more than a tarpaulin cover to protect them from the elements the drawings arrived safely in London and were brought from the Thames to the Soane Museum where, with the exception of exhibition loans, they have never since left.

In this drawings collection 166 are by Giuseppe Manocchi. In 1765 Manocchi, a Roman draughtsman, joined the architectural office of Robert and James Adam in London. Immediately upon his employment, the Adam brothers commissioned Manocchi to make a series of drawings to provide inspirational material for their work.

Specifications

• Paperback Edition
• Page Count: 160
• Dimensions: 205 x 255mm
• Language: English