Understanding Architectural Drawings

This selection of 22 drawings has been chosen as an introduction to the art of architectural drawing. It explains what the drawings were for and how they were made. All the drawings shown are in the collection of Sir John Soane’s Museum, either those made by Soane and his assistants and pupils, or the work of other architects which Soane collected. He had one of the very best collections of drawings put together by an architect, which he used for his own work and to instruct the pupils and assistants in his office. Soane left his house, together with his collections, to the Nation as a Museum, which is why you can visit it today.

Architects today still make similar kinds of drawings to those in this selection, but now they mostly work on computers. These drawings are often the work of more than one person, as the skills needed to make different kinds of drawings are quite difficult to acquire and in a big architectural office people tend to specialise in one particular kind of drawing.

Working in Soane's Office TOP

This section tells you about what it was like to work in Soane’s office, where the office was and how the pupils and assistants were expected to reach it. It also shows where Soane himself worked. There is a drawing made in Soane’s office to show all his built projects up to 1815. We see the kind of pen made from a goose feather which Soane and his pupils would have used.

Soane was one of the most successful architects of his time and parents would pay to send their sons – only men worked in his office – to be trained to be architects. They worked for 12 hours a day, later reduced to 11. In the summer it would be hot and in the winter dark and cold. They had to use a door at the back of the property so they didn’t walk through the house, and they weren’t allowed to mix with the domestic servants. A few of them didn’t prove good enough and didn’t work there for long. When they started, Soane would see how good they were at drawing by getting them to draw the rooms in the Museum. They would be with him for five or six years, learning to draw and design buildings and all the business which was related to architecture.

• The Upper Drawing Office
  

  The Upper Drawing Office

  The Upper Drawing Office Vol. 82/33

  This drawing, made in 1825, shows a section through the back part of the Museum where Soane’s pupils worked. The areas left white show the Upper Drawing Office, and the office door they used (see also The Little Study). The Office is supported on columns above the area known as the Colonnade which connects the Dome, where you can look down to the sarcophagus, with the Museum Corridor from where the staircase leads to the Office. Light came down in the Office from two skylights above the benches and the walls were hung with plaster casts to instruct and inspire the pupils.

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• The Little Study
  

  The Little Study

  The Little Study P86 (detail)

  This little room was where Soane would sit and work at the surprisingly small table which pulled out from under the desk as you can see. Here he would produce the kind of drawings which would be worked up by the pupils (like Original Sketch Design: Tyringham Gateway). He would also be able to keep an eye on who was coming and going in the back part of the house. In front of the window are blinds like modern Venetian ones but vertical so that Soane would adjust the light to have it just how he wanted it. Between the Little Study and the area below the Upper Drawing Office is the Dressing Room where he would tidy himself up and put on his wig and coat before meeting builders who, like the pupils, would use the office door at the back of the house. This is a detail from a drawing of 1822.

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• Public and Private Buildings
  

  Public and Private Buildings

  Public and Private Buildings P87

  Here is a drawing showing all Soane’s buildings built between 1808 and 1815, drawn by Joseph Michael Gandy – Soane’s best draughtsman – in 1820. Look at how cleverly all the buildings are shown as if they are in a huge room. Some are shown as big models and some as pictures within the picture. Imagine how much work went into drawing them all, let alone designing them.

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• Quill Pen
  

  Quill Pen

  Quill pen

  In Soane’s time, some pens were made from feathers, also called quills. The best quills come from geese; the feathers used are those from the leading edge of the wings. They were sometimes dried and hardened in hot sand and they were shaped with a sharp knife – a pen knife – to form a nib. This could be fine or broad as required.

  Metal pens were also starting to be used in Soane’s time and would be used for finer work.  Soane’s Tyringham Gateway sketch was probably made with a quill pen like this one.

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Types of Drawings TOP

This section shows the different types of architectural drawings there are and what they are for. It shows the main four kinds of drawings: elevation, plan, section and perspective; together with more specialised kinds of drawings: bird’s-eye view and floor plan with laid-out wall elevations. 

Some important buildings are shown: the Pantheon in Rome, one of the greatest Roman buildings to survive; Soane’s own country house, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing and Lady Williams Wynne’s room, St James’s Square, designed by Robert Adam, whose drawings Soane bought for his collection. 

• Elevation: The Pantheon
  

  Elevation: The Pantheon

  Elevation: The Pantheon 45/3/54

  There are basically four kinds of drawings which can be made to show buildings. An elevation like this one of the Pantheon in Rome (the best preserved ancient Roman building in the world, built in the early 2nd century AD) shows the outside of the building as if you were looking straight at it: this one is of the front of the Pantheon showing the shape of the dome over the huge central space and the porch, called a portico, supported on columns.

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• Plan: The Pantheon
  

  Plan: The Pantheon

  Plan: The Pantheon 45/3/52

  A plan, like this one of the Pantheon, shows the layout of the building seen from above as if the building were only built to just above ground level. You can see the huge round space in the centre of the building and the arrangement of the columns of the portico.

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• Section: The Pantheon
  

  Section: The Pantheon

  Section: The Pantheon 45/3/53

  This is a section of the Pantheon which shows a slice through the building as if it were a cake cut in half. It shows the height of spaces inside the building and how they are arranged. Note how carefully the shadows are drawn to give a real feeling of how the dome curves. The walls which have been cut through are coloured in pink – a colour which was often used in this way by architects. These drawings of the Pantheon were made in Rome in 1778 when Soane was a student.

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• Perspective: Pitzhanger Manor
  

  Perspective: Pitzhanger Manor

  Perspective: Pitzhanger Manor Vol. 90/5

  This is a perspective of Soane’s own country house, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, built from 1800 onwards. It shows how the building would look if you were really standing in front of it. Perspectives are probably the most difficult to draw as you have to work out the way the building will appear before it is actually built – but there are ways to do this using the plans, elevations and sections.

  This is the original drawing for plate V in Soane’s book Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views of Pitzhanger Manor-House. There are other sorts of drawings, elevations, plans and sections in the book as well.

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• Bird’s-Eye View: Pitzhanger Manor
  

  Bird’s-Eye View: Pitzhanger Manor

  Perspective: Pitzhanger Manor Vol. 90/5

  A bird’s-eye view is a very clever kind of drawing, which shows a building as it would look from the air, as a bird flying over the building would see it – hence the name. This drawing is also of Pitzhanger Manor and shows the arch over the entrance from the road, the gardens and an artificial ruin Soane built to the right of the house.

  He would pretend that these were real Roman ruins and even made drawings showing how they would have looked when complete.

  The whole thing was probably a sort of joke he liked to play on his visitors and friends. Unfortunately, although the house is still there, the ruins were removed after Soane sold the property. In Soane’s time artificial ruins like this one were built in gardens to remind people of those they had seen in Italy.

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• Floor Plan with Laid-Out Wall Elevations: Lady Williams Wynne’s Room, St James’s Square
  

  Floor Plan with Laid-Out Wall Elevations: Lady Williams Wynne’s Room, St James’s Square

  Floor Plan with Laid-Out Wall Elevations: Lady Williams Wynne’s Room, St James’s Square Adam Vol. 40/70

  Another kind of drawing is the floor plan with laid-out wall elevations. It is a combination of a plan for a single room with the internal elevations of the walls shown, as if it were a box with the walls flattened open. Sometimes the ceiling would also be shown on this kind of drawing.

  This sort of drawing is easy for the client to understand and cheaper than a model. This is a drawing by Robert Adam’s office for Lady Williams Wynne’s room in a house in St James’s Square in London, and was drawn in about 1772. Robert Adam was a famous architect who had a big office in London, and was older than Soane. After the Adam office closed, Soane bought many of the Adam drawings to add to his collection.

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Uses of the Drawings TOP

This section discusses what the drawings were for. We show a survey drawing of an existing building, one of Soane’s own sketch designs and the working drawing sent to the builder in the form of a ‘letter’ for the same building – the Tyringham Gateway. There is also a full-sized drawing of a detail in Soane’s greatest building – the Bank of England.

• Survey Drawing; Moggerhanger
  

  Survey Drawing; Moggerhanger

  Survey Drawing: Moggerhanger, 1790 3/3/15

  This drawing is of an existing building, Moggerhanger Park, which was altered and added to by Soane. A rough plan was made of the building when the assistants visited the site, then all the measurements would be made and noted down on the drawing.

  The drawing would often be done again more carefully back in the office. In Soane’s time, measurements were made in feet and inches, whereas today in Europe we use metric measurements. In fact, in Soane’s time there were different sizes of feet and inches in different countries, even in different parts of Italy – you can imagine how confusing that was. Plans, elevations and sections were drawn to a scale, which means reducing something as big as a building to fit on a piece of paper. The drawing would often be made to fit the size of paper it was drawn on and the scale shown at the bottom, from which you would measure the size of the windows, doors and so on.

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• Original Sketch Design: Tyringham Gateway
  

  Original Sketch Design: Tyringham Gateway

  Original Sketch Design: Tyringham Gateway Vol. 42/164

  Soane would draw the basic design quickly and simply but with all the essential forms and proportions correctly shown. See how he knows exactly what he wants to convey to the draughtsman who will carefully re-draw it. (This is for a gateway for a house in Buckinghamshire called Tyringham, drawn in 1794).

  You can see the working drawing made from this sketch in the next image.

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• Working Drawing: Tyringham Gateway
  

  Working Drawing: Tyringham Gateway

  Working Drawing: Tyringham Gateway 62/8/23

  This is the kind of drawing which might be called  ‘a letter to the builder’. It tells the builder exactly what is required to be built and where; in this case the drawing was literally sent to the clerk of works, Mr Parkins, as a letter. Here we see both the front and the back of the sheet. You can see how it was folded, sealed with sealing wax, addressed and marked with a round mark by the post office on the join so once it was opened it could not be sent again. This was before the time of stick-on postage stamps (the first stamp was the Penny Black in 1840). The drawing is for the Tyringham Gateway. Note how all the information needed is shown on the drawing: the plan, section and elevation with all the necessary dimensions. The detail on the right is an elevation and section of the cornice at half the full size. It was drawn in 1794.

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Learning from Drawing TOP

In this section we see how Soane’s pupils and assistants learnt from drawing. We see a young architect measuring one of the great Roman temples and we see how, in England, the art of perspective developed in the sixteenth century and the kind of books from which one could learn about architectural design and perspective. Lastly, we see one of Soane’s pupils drawing on site to record and learn about the process of construction. 

• Young Architect Measuring the Temple of Jupiter Stator, Rome
  

  Young Architect Measuring the Temple of Jupiter Stator, Rome

  Young Architect Measuring the Temple of Jupiter Stator, Rome 23/9/3

  See what trouble architects and students touring Italy took to measure the buildings they so admired from the past. This drawing is probably not literally correct – the ladder would have to have been very long! Also the real building, being built in the 2nd century AD, is really rather ruined with bits worn away and falling off, but it does give you an idea of what they did. Notice the architect’s long ruler and top hat! He would shout the dimensions to a colleague on the ground who noted them down.

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• Drawing from Treatise on Perspective by Du Cerceau
  

  Drawing from Treatise on Perspective by Du Cerceau

  Drawing from Treatise on Perspective by Du Cerceau, Soane Museum Library

  This is from a book on how to draw perspectives called Leçons de perspective positive by Androuet du Cerceau (1510-84), first published in 1576. Perspective is the art of creating a picture of an object, often a building, which comes very close to the impression of reality, although it is on a flat surface.

  Think of how railway lines, which are really parallel, appear to meet at a point in the far distance, called the vanishing point. This is because objects appear smaller as they get further away from you. When drawing in perspective it is important to establish where the vanishing point is.

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• Bird’s-Eye View of Longford Castle from the Thorpe Album
  

  Bird’s-Eye View of Longford Castle from the Thorpe Album

  Bird’s-Eye View of Longford Castle from the Thorpe Album Vol. 101/158

  This is how people drew who hadn’t really learnt the art of drawing in perspective. It was drawn between 1596 and 1603 and is from a book of drawings collected and drawn by the Thorpe family who were masons and architects in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

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• Palladio Woodcut
  

  Palladio Woodcut

  Palladio Woodcut Soane Museum Library

  This is the sort of drawing which Soane’s pupils would be required to study. It is, in fact, a woodcut made from a drawing to illustrate a series of books called I Quattro libri dell’architettura by the famous Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-80). A woodcut is a print made from a wooden block where the white areas of the drawing have been cut away and ink applied to the raised areas of the block. This design is for the Villa Rotonda, also called the Villa Capra, in Vicenza, Italy. It shows the plan, and below, part elevation, part section. Palladio’s buildings were much copied and inspired other buildings all around the world.

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• ‘I T House’ from the Thorpe Album
  

  ‘I T House’ from the Thorpe Album

  ‘I T House’ from the Thorpe Album Vol. 101/50

  Here is another drawing from the same book, drawn at about the same time, but this draughtsman, probably John Thorpe, had a much better idea of perspective. He has designed a house with the shape of his initials ‘I T’ (the letter ‘J’ is written as an ‘I’ copying the style of the Romans who had no letter ‘J’). The plan is on a separate sheet of paper which you can see here underneath the perspective. He was influenced by Androuet du Cerceau’s treatise on perspective.

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• Pupil at work in Dulwich Mausoleum
  

  Pupil at work in Dulwich Mausoleum

  Pupil at work in Dulwich Mausoleum Vol. 81/23

  Soane’s pupils were sometimes sent out (usually on foot) to see the buildings being built and make drawings to record the progress of the work. This also helped the pupils learn about design, construction and the play of light in a building. This drawing was made in 1812. Note that the pupil has made a bench and drawing table out of two planks on a trestle. He has even covered the bench with his hankerchief to protect his white trousers.

  They had instructions to study the contrast between the dark mausoleum and the light of the Gallery carefully. At this stage the building was unfinished - the bare brick is still to be plastered and decorated. Dulwich Picture Gallery was designed by Soane between 1811 and 1817 and is one of the earliest and most important purpose-built art galleries in the world. It still has the collection of paintings it was designed to house.

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Drawings for Clients, Exhibitions and Lectures TOP

Here we see the sort of highly-finished drawings Soane would had had made to show a client how the building he designed for them would look. We also see the drawings which were made for exhibitions which were an essential way to show his skills as an architect, and we see the sort of drawings he had made to illustrate the lectures he gave at the Royal Academy as Professor of Architecture. This section contains an extract from one of his lectures which is illustrated by the drawing of domes. 

• Tyringham Entrance Front
  

  Tyringham Entrance Front

  Tyringham Entrance Front 3/5/13

  This was the kind of drawing made to impress the client and explain how the building would look. These were very carefully done for a client who might not easily understand more technical drawings. This drawing was made in 1793. Soane has placed a pure elevation in a naturalistic landscape, rather than make a full perspective. Note that Soane has used a modern-looking kind of lettering called sans serif; more traditional letters have little lines or ticks called serifs at the ends of each stroke of the letter, like the letters the Romans used. Sans is the French for ‘without’ and sans serif means the letters have no serifs.

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• Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London
  

  Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London

  Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London 15/4/6

  This drawing was made to impress visitors to the annual exhibitions held at the Royal Academy of Arts (which are still held today). It was made in 1825, before the age of magazines and photographs. Thousands of people went to exhibitions and Soane’s drawing might have had to compete with big oil paintings by Turner or Constable (famous painters of the day) in the galleries next door. They were impressive, highly detailed pictures in a frame which might be designed by Soane himself. They contained lots of information, with plans, sections and details cleverly incorporated into the drawing, as all the information had to be in one picture. The effect of light and shade was most important to make them look as real as possible. The title would be in the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue so might not be on the drawing itself. They would take a long time to draw; imagine spending 28 days or so on one drawing. They were often drawn by Joseph Michael Gandy – Soane’s favourite draughtsman.

  Notice the two pupils with the plan, and the brickwork, roof, galleries and crypt all cleverly shown as if cut away. Also look at the details of the capitals and cornice (parts of a classical style of building) shown like ruins scattered on the ground, and the exterior of the finished church in the clouds. Sometimes the building was shown as if in the process of being built, with wooden scaffolding lashed together with ropes. England was a sea-faring nation, and men would be skilled at lashing things together with ropes. Also canvas, like ship’s sails, was used to keep the dust from blowing around and protect the workmen and their new work. Today builders use metal scaffolding and plastic sheeting.

  Holy Trinity Church has been deconsecrated and is now used as an events venue – One Marylebone.

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• RA Lecture Drawing: Domes
  

  RA Lecture Drawing: Domes

  RA Lecture Drawing: Domes 23/2/2

  Soane was Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1806 until his death in 1837. He took his lecturing there very seriously and had hundreds of drawings made, which were the equivalent of a slide or Powerpoint show. They were strong, powerful images to make a particular point, often copied from existing prints or illustrations. They were held up as Soane spoke. His friend J M W Turner, one of the greatest English painters of his time, considered it to be an honour to hold them up for him. Unfortunately, it seems that Soane spoke too fast as he gave the lectures. There would be lots of work in the office to get the drawings all done. This drawing, made by one of Soane’s assistants, Charles Tyrell, in 1814, shows the comparative sizes of famous domes. The smallest is a section of Soane’s own design for the Rotunda at the Bank of England, built in 1785. The next is an elevation of the Radcliffe Library in Oxford, designed by James Gibbs and built in 1748. Then comes a section of the Pantheon in Rome, built in the early 2nd century AD.
  The largest is an elevation of the dome of St Peter’s, by Michelangelo, also in Rome, completed in 1590. See how cleverly the draughtsman shows the different sizes of the domes..

  The extract below is part of Soane’s Royal Academy Lecture VI which concerned domes; 

  The ancient architects, fully impressed with the beauty and importance of domes, constructed them with durable materials and in the most scientific manner. Had it not been so the astonishing dome of the Pantheon, the light and elegant dome of the Temple of Minerva Medica, those in the Baths of Diocletian, that at St Rémy, as well as many others, would only have been known to us in the annals of the historian.

  There is also a very uncommon specimen of dome at Ravenna which forms the roof of the Basilica of Hercules or, as called by others, the Mausoleum of Theodoric. This dome although nearly twenty feet in diameter and weighing between eight and nine hundred tons, is notwithstanding formed out of one piece of marble. 

  The ancients confined the domical form of covering to buildings whose plans are square, polygonal, or circular. These hemispherical roofs were sometimes left open at [the] top for light, as in the Pantheon and in other ancient buildings, but the domes of the Temple of Minerva Medica and of the Mausoleum at St Rémy, as well as those of the Baths of Diocletian, are all complete hemispheres, whilst in other buildings domes are terminated, as directed by Vitruvius, with some characteristic ornament: at the Mole of Hadrian with a pineapple, and at the Tower of the Winds with a Triton holding in his hand a wand. There is also a very distinct species of dome to be seen in the church of Sta Sophia at Constantinople, for which happy invention we are indebted to two Grecian architects Anthemius and Isidorus. This dome, though less simple than those in ancient buildings, is far superior in lightness of appearance and boldness of construction. This dome, resting on four arches, springing from as many large piers, makes on its ichnographic projection a perfect square, whose concave surfaces gradually increasing from its base, form a complete circle, on reaching the crown of four arches. Thus the entire dome, reposing on four points, seems rather suspended in the air than supported by the piers. 

  The domes of the ancients seem always to grow out of the substruction and to harmonise and unite with it in the most gradual and pleasing manner, forming as it were a canopy to the whole edifice. In many modern structures domes seem to be placed on the roofs without any visible support, and without any apparent connection with the other parts of the edifice, as at St Peter’s in Rome, St Paul’s in London, the church of the Invalides in Paris, and other examples. It must likewise be remarked that modern domes, instead of being terminated with light appropriate ornaments, as in ancient works, are now often surcharged with lanterns of very considerable dimensions, both in bulk and height. However general this fashion may now be, it is not less deserving of censure, for as the dome represents the roof of a square, polygonal or circular building, in the manner as the pediment designates the roof of a rectangular structure, how can we add a lantern, or any other building, on a dome? If the architects at Tralles were formerly reproved for having represented in a scene only, columns and pediments on the roofs of their buildings, if one of these barbarous monstrosities had been raised upon the dome of the Pantheon, would not every man of taste in antiquity have exclaimed against such a preposterous addition? Such an addition, however, was only prevented by the death of Alexander the Seventh.

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