GANDY, Joseph Michael (1771-1843), a brilliant architect and delineator from London, England whose career owes much to that of his mentor Sir John Soane. His actual output of completed works was restricted to less than ten buildings in London, Bath, Lancaster, Birmingham and elsewhere, but he was a true visionary, and channelled his architectural ambitions by working for Soane as his exceptionally gifted draftsman and perspectivist. He is also the author of two books of his own designs, including The Rural Architect (1805), and Designs for Cottages, Cottage Farms and other Rural Buildings (1805). He may rightly be considered one of the most original figures of English Romanticism.
In 1811 he was commissioned to prepare designs for a new Senate House at QUEBEC CITY, QUE., but the scheme was rejected as too costly and it was not until 1830 when a new Parliament Building was constructed to plans by Thomas Baillairge. The exquisitely rendered drawings by Gandy for this project survive, and are held at National Archives of Canada (NMC H2/350). Gandy exhibited these drawings at the Royal Academy in London in 1812 (A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, 1905, iii, 198-99). A description of the drawings can be found in the R.A.I.C. Journal, xv, June 1938, 132-3, and they are illustrated in L. Noppen & G. Deschenes, Quebec's Parliament Building - Witness to History, 1986, 30, illus. Gandy died in London in December 1843. An extensive collection of his drawings is now held in several locations in London including the Soane Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the R.I.B.A. Drawings Collection (biog. and list of works by Gandy in H. Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 1995, 388-90; MacMillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, ii, 158; Grove Dictionary of Art, 1996, xii, 45-6). A full monograph on the career and work of this talented architect entitled Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England and written by Brian Lukacher, was published in 2006.