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anthonypaulh · 5 years

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A NIGHT at the MUSEUM with the AMAZING MR SOANE

One of the many benefits of being a Londoner born and bred is that you get to know the nooks and crannies of the City. Down the avenues and up the hidden alleyways you can discover many off the beaten track attractions. You get to know the places that not so many visitors reach.

Not for me the trek to Madam Tussaud’s to see waxy works, nor the Planetarium to look at the stars. No trip to Greenwich to check the mean time and never a rider on the wheel or a climber up the Shard. These are the places where many visitors go to queue and very fine they are. But these are not regular haunts for those of us born in the City.

It is almost as if we have surrendered such places to tourists and sightseers, thereby keeping back some of the hidden gems that the Metropolis hides under its’ bushel, so to speak. There are so many wonderful, lesser known attractions that are not as busy, hectic or selfie stacked .

Just one of the hidden treats that London has to offer is the incredible house at numbers 12 to 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Sir John Soane Museum. One of the most eclectic collections of artefacts ever assembled is housed in what was the former home of architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837). It displays his collection of antiquities, furniture, sculptures, architectural models, paintings – including work by Hogarth, Turner and Canaletto – and over 30,000 architectural drawings. It’s a vast, extraordinary collection, full of curiosities and surprises.

I am fortunate to have visited the house of Mr Soane many times but my latest enchanting tour was made at night, when the dramatic effect that he intended his collection to make really comes to life. Seeing the property and the incredible objects that it houses by candlelight, shows things exactly as Soane would have preferred to show them to his esteemed guests.

He wanted to impress, he expected visitors to be awe struck, amazed , thrilled and entertained. This was a man who was desperate to make a mark, to make a big splash but at the same time share it with others. Here was an incredibly complex character who lived his life in the shadow of the Enlightenment but at the birth of Romanticism. An autodidact, Soane was determined to improve himself. He was a driven man, self motivated and desperate to succeed . It was no surprise then that he should leave his home and collection of artefacts for the education and enlightenment of all who succeeded him. What better legacy ?

A visit to his museum really is an entrance to his World, it is a tour of his home exactly as he left it when he died in 1837 (the year that Queen Victoria came to the throne). The entire experience is fantastical yet so intimate that the visitor feels that the great man himself is still present. It is a genuine sensation that Soane himself is guiding you around his home, gently introducing you to artefacts and treasures from every corner of the globe. So, who was Sir John Soane and what was his role in London life during the early part of the 19th Century ?

The architect Sir John Soane was born in Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire in 1753. He was the son of a bricklayer and came from a very humble family. He was educated in Reading and later moved to Chertsey in Surrey then aged 14, after the death of his father in 1768. He moved into the home of his older brother, who was also a bricklayer and it was William who introduced Soane to the surveyor James Peacock who worked for the famous architect George Dance the Younger. This was Soane’s first big break and he was determined to make the most of the opportunity.

At the age of 15, Soane commenced his training as an architect at the offices of George Dance the Younger in London at his practice on the corner of Moorfields and Chsiwell Street near what is now Old Street roundabout in Islington. He joined the schools of the Royal Academy in 1771 and worked hard to absorb as much knowledge and information as possible. In 1772 he moved into the household of builder Henry Holland and he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Academy in that year for a drawing of the facade of the Banqueting House in Whitehall. He was then awarded a gold medal in 1776 for the design of a Triumphal Bridge. A promising talent was beginning to flourish.

The early promise and dedication displayed by Soane was rewarded by the Royal Academy in 1777 with a travelling scholarship. This was to be the next big opportunity for the broadening of Soane’s horizons and his development as a designer and architect. He was granted the sum of £60 per year for 3 years, plus £30 travelling expenses for each leg of the journey. Soane set off on his Grand Tour on 18th March 1778 with the aim of travelling to Rome via Paris and taking in most of the important classical architectural gems and art works in Italy. On the homeward leg he would make stops in Switzerland, Germany and Belgium for further study.

This was a life changing experience and the basis on which his entire career would be founded. For a young man from very modest beginnings, Soane was diligent, committed and determined to succeed. But on his return to London from his Grand Tour, although much enlightened he was also much in debt. He got back to London in June 1780 and he owed £120. He needed to get work as soon as possible. He was itching to put into practice all that he had learned and he was also eager to establish himself and clear his debts.

He was successful in getting some minor jobs, refurbishing and repairing buildings for various contacts he had made on his Grand Tour. His old mentor George Dance gave him a few jobs, including repair work on Newgate Prison damaged in the Gordon Riots of 1781.

But Soane did not receive his first full commission until 1783, for a new country house Letton Hall in Norfolk. At last his career was really taking off and plenty of work followed in East Anglia. He was at last making decent sized waves and more importantly making friends in very high places, including the Prime Minister William Pitt. Movers and shakers courted him now and it came as no surprise when our man Soane was awarded what was to be the most significant contract of his life. A combination of what he knew and who he knew got him the key role that would really propel him to a new level.

His friendship with the Prime Minister, his Pitt prop, was crucial in getting him the commission for the redevelopment of the Bank of England in 1788. For one still relatively young and inexperienced, aged just 35, this was a huge deal for Soane. He would remain architect and surveyor to the Bank of England until 1833, pretty much rebuilding the entire bank and extending it in that time. Sadly most of his work at the bank was demolished when it was redeveloped in the 20th century by Sir Herbert Baker.

As his notoriety and celebrity increased Soane attracted plenty of work like in 1807 when he was appointed the clerk of works at The Royal Chelsea Hospital. In 1813, he became the official architect to the Office of Works. The appointment ended in 1832, at a salary of £500 per annum. As part of this position he was invited to advise the Parliamentary commissioners on the building of new churches.

In 1811, Soane was appointed as architect for Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first purpose-built public art gallery in Britain. The Dulwich Picture Gallery was completed in 1817. The five main galleries are lit by elongated roof lanterns. The use of light, mirrors and lanterns became key features of Soanean architecture. The neoclassical foundations on which he built his reputation frequently gave way to a more romantic slant. Such diversity, even contradiction can be viewed spectacularly at his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The Soane connection with Lincoln’s Inn Fields started in 1792 when he bought the house at number 12. It is important to understand that Lincoln’s Inn Fields was and still is a very desirable address. It is situated in Holborn (ironically 5 minutes from where I was born and brought up).

At the time Soane purchased number 12 he would have been acutely aware that his new home was just 5 minutes walk from the Royal Academy at Somerset House. The same distance to the West was Freemason’s Hall and further into Covent Garden lived his friend and celebrated cockney artist JMW Turner. No doubt, Soane wanted to be at the heart of London life and all the notoriety and trade it brought.

As Soane expanded his collections and portfolio of work he expanded his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by purchasing number 13 in 1807. The properties were his home, library and practice where he entertained potential clients. But as ever with Soane he rapidly ran out of space for the huge collection of artefacts, drawings, pictures, plaster casts, Roman marbles and items from all corners of the World. So in 1812 Soane rebuilt the front of number 13 and used it to display more of his vast collection.

After the remodelling of number 13 in 1812, Soane opened up his house to students and some magazines often referred to his home as the Academy of Architecture. However, Soane continued to collect and by 1823 more space was needed, so he bought the property at number 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In 1833 he negotiated an Act of Parliament: to preserve his house and collection, exactly as it would be at the time of his death – and to keep it open and free for inspiration and education.

Soane was determined to ensure that all his work and all of his vast collection would be made available to those who succeeded him. Perhaps he was motivated by his own humble background, maybe he was a tad vain and wanted to ensure he’d never be forgotten, possibly he was also mindful that his own sons were not at all interested in architecture so he could not pretend that they would want his collection. Soane was a complex, often irascible character, so who really knows what he was thinking.

What we do know is that the celebrated architect Sir John Soane had married his wife Elizabeth Smith in 1784 and their first child John was born on 29 April 1786. A second son George was born just before Christmas 1787 but the boy died just six months later. The third son, also called George, was born on 28 September 1789, and their final son Henry was born on 10 October 1790 but died the following year.

Both surviving sons were not at all keen to follow their father into architecture, despite his tremendous efforts to get them to do so. They were, therefore, bound to be a major disappointment to him but they courted their father’s disapproval by making controversial life choices (to say the least). Youngest son John died in 1823 but surviving son George ended up being blamed for the death of Soane’s wife due to a critical article that he had written of his father’s work in 1815.

When his wife Elizabeth died in 1815 Soane was left a bitter, frustrated and often depressive man. He was determined to leave his legacy to educate those who survived him. As for his surviving son George, he became estranged from his father and they were never reconciled.

In 1816 Soane designed the tomb above the vault his wife was buried in. The monument is in St Pancras Old Church, another of the lesser known gems of London. The tomb avoids any Christian symbolism (Soane was a Deist and Freemason) the roof has a pine cone finial the symbol in Ancient Egypt for regeneration, below which is carved a serpent swallowing its own tail, symbol of eternity, there are also carvings of boys holding extinguished torches symbols of death.

The shape and design of the tomb was a direct influence on Giles Gilbert Scott’s plans for the famous London red telephone box which has become a symbol of Britain across the globe.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of his relationship with his two surviving sons, Soane died in 1837 at his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a widower, estranged from his remaining son George. He was a highly driven, determined, often irascible individual who rose from extremely humble beginnings to the very top of his chosen, self taught profession. He became one of the most important figures in architecture and one of the most influential people of his time in the London of the late Enlightenment/early Romantic period.

Some commentators have described Soane as a neoclassical architect and famous collector, others have suggested that he was an accidental Romantic with his penchant for the sublime and the use of light, space and genuine shock and awe. But I personally see him as being akin to a Modernist, as someone who wanted constantly to strive for the next and newest thing whilst being an avid collector of all that had gone before to educate and inform his own and others’ future(s).

A visit to the Sir John Soane Museum is indeed a rare treat and a glimpse into the complicated, often contradictory mind of the man himself. A tour of the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is walking through a living home . Even though the owner is not physically present, you can definitely feel his presence.

By candlelight the property comes alive. You do get the sense of awe and surprise that Soane wanted to play upon his guests. The Monk’s Parlour does stimulate a sensation of melancholy by the restricted space, dark colours and the church like use of stained glass to induce that introspective feel he intended. He wanted the Parlour to be a gentle satire on the then fashionable fashion for the “Gothic”. He was poking fun at the whole revival of the Gothic style and it woks beautifully.

There are so many highlights packed into the amazingly small space that is the museum. The Crypt. dining room and library, the study and dressing room, and the breakfast room are all wonderful reflections of the complicated personality behind the great man himself. The house is steeped in the classical tradition of architecture and art from ancient Greece and Rome which he remained convinced should always remain the foundations of any architectural students education. But it has quirkiness at every twist and turn too. Some of the devil really is in the detail and you need to look carefully for some of the subtleties and humour that Soane cleverly intended.

The Picture Room contains numerous paintings and drawings including works by his friend JMW Turner, Canaletto, and Piranesi. Undoubtedly the highlight of the Picture Room is the two series of pictures by William Hogarth (1697-1764). The series entitled A Rakes Progress and the other series called An Election are both worth the journey to visit the museum on their own, let alone all the other curiosities and myriad items in the house. Even the method that Soane himself invented, to display such a huge collection of paintings and drawings, is in itself ingenious given the limited space he had for them.

That Sir John Soane was a complicated, often conflicted man is not open for debate. He lived at a time of tremendous change and upheaval in the first industrial City known to man. The Metropolis was also the fastest growing that history had ever witnessed. To further complicate matters Europe was undergoing the tsunami of change that the French Revolution unleashed in 1789.

Like all cultural items be they paintings, drawings, music, architecture, literature, fashion, they are a reflection of the time in which they are created. Sir John Soane reflected the radically changing times and the exciting opportunities and pitfalls that those times provided. He was complicated, his times were complicated, his collection was eclectic and it reflected every influence that he had ever been exposed to. That we can now share all of his collection, free of charge (during the day) and surround ourselves with some of the most important items ever produced is the most important legacy Sir John Soane could ever have left us.

A night at the museum is a must, more especially when a night in the company of the remarkable Mr Soane is a part of the evening. It is something not to be missed. Truly, it is a night to remember !

Useful Links ….

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/sep/13/artsfeatures.architectureweek1999

https://www.soane.org/your-visit/soane-lates

#sirjohnsoane #sirjohnsoanemuseum #holborn #hogarth #canaletto #london #lincolnsinnfields

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