Sir John Soane's museum

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2003 by Miriam Kramer

This year marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Sir John Soane, the architect and collector who dominated much of Britain's artistic life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His style was essentially classical, but he was not a slavish follower of Greek and Roman details. Soane's best known works are the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and because he married a wealthy woman, he was able to indulge his passion for collecting as well as design and build a substantial house for himself at 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. He left the house and its contents to the nation on his death in 1837.

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Substantial improvements to Sir John Soane's Museum are in progress, in particular the addition of new exhibition and education facilities as well as restoration work to the neighboring house and the complex of the Three Courtyards. These are "outside rooms" designed to house medieval ruins and other architectural pieces acquired by Soane. The total cost for this renovation is [pounds sterling] 2.2 million.

A number of special exhibitions have been organized to illuminate aspects of Soane's interests. The first, John Soane and the Wooden Bridges of Switzerland, is on view from February 13 to April 19 and explores the young architect's interest in these structures, which he encountered on his return from Italy in 1780. This will be followed by John Flaxman, 1755-1826: "Master of the Purest Line" from April 25 to June 14, in which a selection of the Flaxman drawings that Soane acquired will be highlighted. Bob the Roman: Heroic Antiquity and the Architecture of Robert Adam from June 27 until September 27 will focus on Adam's design processes, and George Dance the Younger 1741-1825 is a tribute to this architectural master Catalognes for all the exhibitions can be ordered through the museum's Web site, (www.soane.org) or by telephoning 44-20-7440-4263.

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Sir John Soane's museum

Magazine Antiques, Feb, 2003 by Miriam Kramer

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