A Maze without a Plan? Display in Sir John Soane’s Museum
Sat, 08 Mar
|York
Number 13, Lincoln’s Inn Fields has cast a spell over generations of visitors, evoking delight but provoking, at times, bafflement if not confusion. This talk attempts to illuminate Soane’s collection, and his strategy for it through its display.
Time & Location
08 Mar 2025, 14:30 – 16:00
York, 23 Stonegate, York YO1 8AW, UK
Guests
About the Event
Dr Bruce Boucher
A Maze without a Plan? Display in Sir John Soane’s Museum
Summary:
Number 13, Lincoln’s Inn Fields has cast a spell over generations of visitors, evoking delight but provoking, at times, bafflement if not confusion. Its creator intended it to be a repository of all that was best required for the formation of a modern architect; yet more generally the house and its collections were conceived as an academy for the enlightenment of the general public, as well as a catalyst for the creation of new art by future generations. At the same time, it is much more than the sum of its parts, and is one of the most intensely autobiographical statements conceived in three-dimensional terms. John Soane famously said that the works in his collection were arranged ‘as studies for my own mind’, but he never explained what he meant by that phrase. This talk…