3-008-343 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Royal Academy Prize Architectural Design: an exchange for a large commercial city, by T. H. Watson, 1862. 'The "Design for an Exchange"...is in the Italian Gothic style of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries...The merchants' area is surrounded by coupled iron columns which support the roof, which is constructed of iron, wood, and glass, with a a glass dome...Towards the front shown in our engraving are the Lloyd's Great Room, Captains' Room etc, and above them...is a great hall available for public meetings, balls etc...At the east end of this block of buildings is the great staircase; and at the west end, to which the clock tower is attached, is a chamber of commerce, with waiting-rooms etc...In the roof covering the great hall are three rows of dormer windows...The lateral thrust of the vaulting by which the great hall is covered is resisted by flying buttresses...The whole building is raised upon a terrace...the east and west sides being separated from the streets by arcades of coupled columns 250ft. long...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.