The Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court

Sir William Chambers designed the courtyard in the seventeen seventies as the heart of a government building, and he gave it the proportions of a palace. Look at how the four ranges match each other, with rusticated ground floors, giant columns on the upper storeys and sculpted keystones and trophies above the windows. The statue on the north side shows King George the Third with a figure of Father Thames at his feet, the work of John Bacon. For nearly two centuries the courtyard was a car park for civil servants, and the fountains are entirely modern, installed in the year two thousand when the building opened to the public.

The court is named after the banker and philanthropist Edmond Safra, whose foundation paid for the restoration. Today it is the stage for everything Somerset House does outdoors: the ice rink in winter, open-air film screenings and concerts in summer, and installations by artists in between. If you want to see the architecture on its own, come early on a weekday morning, when the fountains have just started and the stone is still in shadow.

Did You Know? For most of the twentieth century this elegant courtyard was used as a car park for tax office staff.