For me this model is one of the best designs of a centrally planned domed church anywhere, which I would love to use as the basis of a series of studies for an artistic project (you can get an idea of my work on my website). If you also can give advice about how I might go about getting permission to look inside the model itself with this project in mind I’d also be very grateful.

Well, that’s the exact opposite of the case. I’m all for demolishing the current cathedral and building the Great Model instead, it’s a far better building.

Paul is quite right in his comment that you had to climb a vertical ladder to get up into the cross at the top of the Cathedral, I remember it well, and then, as you reached the top, you had to step over a space which was a drop right down to the floor goodness knows how far below. We obviously had to cross one at a time and there was someone there to hold your arm as you did so, very exciting and very memorable!! I imagine that the public are no longer allowed to climb that high for ‘health and safety’ reasons because if you had slipped there was nothing to stop you plummeting to the floor below, but I am so pleased that I have done it, the view from the top is incredible.

I recommend Lisa Jardine’s beautifully written illustrated biography On A Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Sir Christopher Wren.

I remember at the exhibition that Wren would test ideas for the details of the interior of the cathedral with lifesize mock-ups to see how they looked before going ahead with construction.

For those interested in architectural models I would recommend avisit tp Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincolns Inn Field. Soane was a believer in the use of scale models in the education of architects. As well as models of his own designs you can see the models he puchased ehen he visited France and Italy, some in plaster and some in cork.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has a room devoted to Architectural drawings and models but nothing on the scale of St Paul’s. Models are still used o enable clients to visualize a building in 3D and on a smaller scale how it will relate to its setting.

I have also been right to the summit i.e. into the actual cross on top of the orb, via a vertical ladder I seem to remember. It was possible to look out onto the city through a wire mess screen.

Thanks so much

PP

I am currently touring Palladio’s buildings in Vicenza these were indeed innovative architects radically reworking older buildings to make statements for those clients in this case wren for the Church of England

Wooden large scale models really show so much detail and provide such a sense of scale architects or Thierry patrons/ clients seem to have forgotten this basic tool of presentation ?