Dome

Close view of the southwest corner; [Only the ground exterior walls survive from Soan's design - the rest was destroyed in the 1920's and 30's when the Bank was enlarged.] In 1788 the Bank consisted of a Palladian core of the 1730s by George Sampson ( fl 1718-?1764), with extensive single-storey east and west wings of 1765-1770 by Taylor. Between 1792 and 1833 Soane rebuilt much of this earlier work as well as greatly expanding the Bank to the north-west. The first section of the rusticated, windowless screen wall with which Soane was eventually to surround the whole Bank was begun in 1795; it is all that survives of Soane's work at the Bank. To enliven this wall he articulated it with the rich Corinthian order of the so-called Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, which he had sketched while in Italy. His use of this order reached a climax in 1805 with the Tivoli Corner at the north-west angle of the Bank: a curved composition of considerable richness and complexity. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 7/5/2008)