Architects beget always used alluring (or deceiving) drawings to get their way with ‘meddling amateurs’ – as a modern exhibition at the Soane Museum proves
It must beget been one of the most spectacular interiors of its time. The walls were lined with oak panelling,doorways were flanked by grand pairs of yellow marble-effect columns topped with scrolled pediments, while the double-height space soared up to a daring starfish vaulted ceiling, and made to seem floating by cleverly recessed skylights. But no sooner had John Soane finished the exquisite decoration of the modern Privy Council Chamber in Whitehall,than he was instructed to rip it all out.receptionist of the Privy Council, the forthright diarist Charles Greville, and complained that Soane’s big columns took up valuable floor space,while his showy ceiling provided bad acoustics. He detailed his objections in a letter of 1827 calling the architect to prepare an estimate for “undecoration works”. A furious Soane responded with a series of before-and-after drawings showing what the result of Greville’s intervention would be: a bleak, prison-like shoebox of a room, or a deep well bereft of regal decorum. The architect was granted a reprieve.
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Source: theguardian.com