Soane and Space; Exposing the Art of Living

This afternoon my Emerging Architecture of Global Cities class took a quick trip to Sir John Soane's Museum. And by museum, I mean private residence. And by private residence, I mean "museum for living."

While the dream home is a commonly-shared ideal, the architecture students' dream home is perhaps more of a mental work-in-progress.

As a child one of my favorite verbal games was to ask my friends and family "What would your dream [fill-in-a-room-typology-here] be?" I would then wait for my lucky (or sympathetic) playmate to ask my response, in which I usually replied in an unrehearsed manner "Oh, you know, stain glass windows" and for my bedroom, "a cherry-wood treehouse." Strange childhood and still-harbored hopes of tree-living aside, I would argue that the value of this game remains a valid practice for an emerging architect.

While architects supposedly design for others, it is the architects' living space in which "best practices" and ideas may reach fruition. It is also the place where lifestyle choices may be spatially experimented with and employed. After visiting a professor's home last spring, I was moved by his simple installation of air vents above various door frames as a means of maintaining air circulation. In another professor's home, I wasn't nearly as surprised as I ought to have been to find a home office chock full of "brutalist" steel filing cabinets contrasted with a downstairs decor of pony fur and shag.


Sir John Soane, well-known architect of the Bank of England and full-blown "Renaissance man" used his property at 12 Lincoln's Inn Fields to walk the line between invention and antiquity. Taught to me as the go-to-guy for Neo-Classical buildings and ancient dogma, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Soane's home was where he was perhaps the most experimental and dynamic.

What is perhaps most extraordinary about Sir John Soane's home is its playful section. From almost any room, one can peer through a window, skylight, or clerestory to see a different level or room. While there is no linear path, and the amount of relics and treasures from Soane's travels adorn every surface, the varied illusions of depth and light create a fascinating dialogue between interior and exterior as well as "views" and "viewing."

In the middle of the drawing room, one merely has to look into the central courtyard to see a huge Egyptian tomb as well as snaking crypt-like-caverns to all four sides. In the "picture room," door after door the size of an entire wall may be opened (by a man in white gloves) to reveal hidden paintings and large-scale hand-painted renderings of Soane's built works (depicted as ancient ruins, avec Soane's dramatic flair.)

After experiencing Soane's museum, I am excited about the prospect of designing a place I might someday live in for more than four months. Whether home is a treehouse, renovated urban shoe-box, or sprawling country estate, only time will tell. However, after seeing Soane's residence manifested as a series of frames showcasing passions as well as valued private and public pursuits, I have expanded my palette of ideas regarding what a dwelling place can and should embody.