Somerset House, Strand, London WC2

from £65.00
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Illustration by Andrew Cadey

Somerset House, the single most important public building project of the eighteenth century. An innovative Neoclassical building, London’s first office block and a formidable feat of organisation in bringing together several diverse bodies of scholarship and government. These included the Navy Office, alongside the tax and lottery offices, the Duchy of Lancaster, among other offices and three learned societies: the Royal Academy, the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquarians.

Sir William Chambers received the commission in 1775 and the North Wing fronting the Strand and illustrated here, was the first part of the complex to be built. Its design was based on Inigo Jone’s drawings for the riverfront of the former palace. Borrowing from palace architecture, it has a giant order of pilasters and engaged columns spanning the piano nobile and mezzanine. The windows are marked with pediments or straight heads. By 1780 the North Wing was finished and occupied.

Today, The Courtauld Institute of Art occupies the North Wing.

Limited first edition print run of 20

Illustration by Andrew Cadey

Somerset House, the single most important public building project of the eighteenth century. An innovative Neoclassical building, London’s first office block and a formidable feat of organisation in bringing together several diverse bodies of scholarship and government. These included the Navy Office, alongside the tax and lottery offices, the Duchy of Lancaster, among other offices and three learned societies: the Royal Academy, the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquarians.

Sir William Chambers received the commission in 1775 and the North Wing fronting the Strand and illustrated here, was the first part of the complex to be built. Its design was based on Inigo Jone’s drawings for the riverfront of the former palace. Borrowing from palace architecture, it has a giant order of pilasters and engaged columns spanning the piano nobile and mezzanine. The windows are marked with pediments or straight heads. By 1780 the North Wing was finished and occupied.

Today, The Courtauld Institute of Art occupies the North Wing.

Limited first edition print run of 20

Product Details

Print: Printed on 240gsm Alpha Cellulose paper with a clean white base and a smooth matt surface and acid free. (Titled, signed and numbered in pencil on the reverse)

Mount: High quality ‘ice white’ picture mount with precision cut bevelled edge and a card backing board with printed label. All card is acid free, conservation quality white core, ph neutral board 1.4mm thick