Hct15 akw daniela puga

According to Christopher Woodward (Guardian; 2006), Joseph Michael Gandy wrote to The Guardian in 1821 in response to a hard critic: ‘Why should he not show the public the possibilities of architecture? Their imaginative horizons had been lowered by the drudgery of living in a city of commercial development.’

The painting was commissioned 136 years

The Screen Wall

after the Bank of England was founded as a

By Daniela Puga

private cooperation through a Royal Chart

2nd March 2015

in 1964 to ‘promote the publick Good and Benefit of our People,’ 2 , that loaned the In1830 the surveyor of the Bank of England,

amount of ‘Twelve Hundred Thousand

Sir John Soane, commissioned a painting

Pounds’3 to the government in order to be

from his draughtsman1, imagining how the

able to strengthen the public finances after

Bank of England would look as an ancient

the Great Revolution, which brought William

ruin in a hundred years. He imagined that

and Mary to the throne 1688 and with it,

the collection of courtyards, saloons, vaults

political stability over a hundred years. The

and corridors that composed The Bank

stability meant that commerce, precursor of

facilities at the time, would be left free of

banking,

ceilings, with some of their walls standing,

exchange and accumulation4. Because of the

sustaining its unity only by its surrounding

Bank of England’s role as the manager of

wall. This blind screen, built through stages

the national debt during the Napoleonic

between 1796 and 1823, would still be a

wars, the greater the conflict, the more the

continuous

imperceptibly

Bank grew; acquiring the constructions next

interrupted by four entrances, containing the

to it and transforming them. When the

3¼ acres of what would have been The

Gordon Riots of 1780 carried through

Bank. In the painting, the site has been

London, the ensemble was a visible target

transformed into a cliff, showing the ruins as

for the violent anger of the protesters and

an Island emerging from the blurred city of

suffered its consequences. In an attempt to

London. This painting predicted the fate of

explain the riots attack upon the Bank,

the building, as today this wall is the only

Robert Watson explained ‘It is supposed

trace left of John Soane’s work at the Bank

that whoever is the master of the bank and

of England. How was did boundary

the tower will soon become master of the

configured and reconfigured from an

city, and whoever is master of the city will

organic association of buildings, to a

soon be master of Great Britain’5. After this

defence screen and a symbol of cohesion

incident, from a ‘Screen Wall’ was built to

and stability?

protect the Bank’s functions, leaving only

element,

flourished

with

its

forms

of

four defined entrance. ‘The Bank of England

MA History and Critical Thinking

Architectural Association

2

from this point forward stand as an isolated

major financial regulator after the recent

self-enclosed physical identity’.

economic crisis.

Shortly after the Napoleonic wars ended,

It is through the gradual accumulation and

Soane received permission to uniform the

collection

façade by cladding (1823). Until then, the

buildings- that a system of relations is

perimeter had been constituted in different

established, progressively defining a thick

stages, through the work of George

perimeter, the Screen Wall. Because of the

Sampson and Robert Taylor. Now it

exchangeable and translatable character of

required a consistent face that would

its collection, the frame, once defined by the

address its role as the central bank; it had

buildings that it contained, becomes and

started competing with the flourishing joint

independent element, the only constituent of

stocks and clearing banks, but established

its territory. This frozen edge is a recurring

its position as ‘the guardian of the gold

theme in the city of London, where an

reserve, the supplier of liquidity of last

organic

resort’ 6 . The envelope then shifted its

relations between the buildings and a

function of securing defence, towards being

continuous but not uniform perimeter which is

a representation for civic knowledge, in the

now protected and therefore motionless by

sense

law, a frozen façade.

that

symbolized

stability

when

everything else failed.

After the First World War, the national debt of England increased up to 7.5 billion pounds, and the responsibilities of the Bank to finance post-war reconstructions and regulate the City’s Financial Market and Institutions required more space, which led to the widely criticised7 refurbishment of Sir Herbert Baker8, that left the ‘Screen Wall’ as the only trace of John Soane’s work, securing its formal cohesion which now parallels its logo: “One Mission, One Bank” 9 currently defines its duties as the

–of

growth

responsibilities,

has

gold

produced

or

closed

Fragment of the wall of Bank of England from Lothbury Street, London

MA History and Critical Thinking

Â

Architectural Association

4

NOTES

9

One Mission (2014) Available at:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Pages/one mission/default.aspx (Accessed: February 27th

1

Joseph Michael Gandy 1830 Pen and coloured

2015).

washes on paper Sir John Soane's Museum (2012) Source: Soane's London: The Bank Of England.

IMAGE SOURCE

Available at: http://www.soane.org/collections/soanes_london/b

1 Soane's London: The Bank Of England. Available at:

ankofengland/8 (Accessed: February 27th 2015)

http://www.soane.org/collections/soanes_london/b

2

The Charter of the Corporation of the Governor

ankofengland/8 (Accessed: February 27th 2015)

and Company of the Bank of England (2013)

2 Photograph from the Author. Date: March 2nd

Available at:

2015

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Documents/ legislation/1694charter.pdf (Accessed: February 27th 2015).

3

Ibid.

4

It is no coincidence that during the same period

Hans Sloane was building his personal collection, which founded the British Museum and the Natural History Museum. Source: The British Museum. (No date) Sir Hans Sloane. Available at: http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_museu ms_story/sir_hans_sloane.aspx (Accessed: February 27th 2015).

5

Abramson, Daniel M. (2005) Building the Bank of

England: money, architecture, society 1694-1942.

New Haven: Yale University Press. P. 84 6

About the Bank (2013) Available at:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Pages/histo ry/timeline.aspx (Accessed: February 27th 2015).

7

One of them says that it was the “greatest

architectural crime” Pevsner N. (As ‘P.F.R. Donner’) (1941) ‘Criticism – Sir Herbert Baker’s Extensions to the Bank of England’ in: Architectural Review, September.

8

Between 1925 and 1942, during the years of the

Modern Movement, when the rupture with traditions was pursued.