A Cape Town Sandy Bay tagged image from photographer – Justin_Smith as published on Flickr.
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Image by Justin_Smith
As one of England’s more unusual houses, Ickworth has been unflatteringly described as resembling "a huge bulk, newly arrived from another planet" and as "an overgrown folly" Yet, is now being architectural re-assessed and recognised as the only building in England comparable with the monumental works of Broullee and Ledoux.
The design concept was based on the designs of Italian architect Mario Asprucci, most noted for his work at the Villa Borghese. Asprucci’s plans were adapted the and the building work overseen by English architects Francis Sandys and his brother Joseph Sandys.
The façades are of brick covered in stucco; beneath a roof of slate and lead. The central rotunda 105 ft. high with domed and balustraded roof. the building is entered through central entrance ionic pedimented portico.
The rotunda is decorated with pilasters, which on the lower floor are Ionic and Corinthian above. The ground and first floor and the third floor and the balustraded parapet are divided friezes bas-relief.
The rotunda is flanked by segmental single story narrow wings (appearing as a blind arcade) linking, in the palladian fashion, to two terminating pavilions; these segmental wings are broken at their centre by projecting bays which house the smoking and Pompeian rooms, both later 19th century additions.
Unlike the design of a true Palladian building, the terminating pavilions are in fact large wings, complementary to the rotunda which is their corps de logis rather than minor balancing appendages. The East Wing, a small mansion in itself, was designed to be the everyday living quarters of the family (which it remained until 1998), thus permitting the more formal rooms of the rotunda to be reserved for entertaining and display. The west wing, intended as an orangery, sculpture gallery and service rooms remained an unfinished shell until the beginning of the 21st century.
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