Thoroughly Modern Soane A Soane Seminar Series
SIR JOHN
SOANE’S
MUSEUM
N E W Y O R K
FOUNDATION
FALL 2008
Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation, in conjunction with Architectural Record Magazine, presents the 2008 Soane
Seminars. Some of the most innovative architects practicing in the early 21st century will discuss their debt to the early
19th-century architecture of Sir John Soane. The investigation is particularly apropos owing to Soane’s well-known use
of simple masses, clean lines and forms, and his dramatic manipulation of light and reflective surfaces.
FALL of 2008 - SESSION 2: The second in our series is architect Daniel Libeskind, whose Denver Art Museum
addition, completed in 2006, makes use of space and light within abstractly massive forms in ways that recall Soane's
own earlier architectural contributions. In 2001, there was the exhibition at the Soane Museum entitled “Libeskind at
the Soane: Drawing A New Architecture.”
A CONVERSATION
with DANIEL LIBESKIND
Monday, 27 October 2008, 6:00pm
at The Union Club, 101 East 69th Street, New York City – business attire required.
PROFILE: Daniel Libeskind, B.Arch. M.A. BDA AIA is an international figure in architectural practice and urban
design. He is well known for introducing a new critical discourse into architecture and for his multidisciplinary
approach. His practice extends from building major cultural and commercial institutions - including museums and
concert halls- to convention centers, universities, housing, hotels, shopping centers and residential work. He also
designs opera sets and maintains an object design studio.
Born in postwar Poland in 1946, Mr. Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965. He studied music in
Israel (on the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship) and in New York, becoming a virtuoso performer.
He left music to study architecture, receiving his professional architectural degree in 1970 from the Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. He received a postgraduate degree in History and
Theory of Architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at Essex University (England) in 1972.
SESSIONS 3 (date to be announced): Another architect who will address Soane's influence is David Chipperfield,
who is completing the restoration and renovation of the 19th-century Neues Museum in Berlin. An exhibition of
Chipperfield’s work will be on view at Sir John Soane Museum in London in 2008 ( 20 June to 6 September - please
see www.Soane.org for details).
Advance paid RESERVATIONS are required, and are payable by check or credit card.
PATRON TICKETS at $80 per person, per session - includes a special private reception following the talk.
REGULAR TICKETS at $30 per person, per session
Register with this form or call Chas Miller at 212 223-2012 or email: [email protected]
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation 1040 First Avenue, No. 311 New York NY 10022
[email protected] | T. 212-223-2012 | www.SoaneFoundation.com
SIR JOHN
SOANE’S
FALL 2008
MUSEUM
FOUNDATION
All-In-One RESPONSE FORM
Please check our website for details on each of these programs and events, or call to request further information. All
prices listed are per person. Reservations are requested - spaces are limited and taken on a first-come-first serve basis.
OCTOBER
in NEW YORK
BUILDINGS IN MINIATURE
___ x $30
___ x $80 Patron*
OCTOBER
in SAN FRANCISCO
BUILDINGS IN MINIATURE
MONDAY, 20 OCTOBER
THURSDAY, 23 OCTOBER
– 6:00 PM
– 10:30 AM
Tim Knox
Tim Knox
* includes
Location:
Attire:
This lecture is presented at the San Francisco Fall
Antiques Show. Please inquire with the Soane
office regarding tickets.
special private reception
Union Club, 101 East 69th Street
Jacket and Ties required for gentlemen
OCTOBER
in NEW YORK
Date to be announced
in NEW YORK
SOANE SEMINAR session THOROUGHLY MODERN SOANE
SOANE SEMINAR session THOROUGHLY MODERN SOANE
___ x $30
___ x $80 Patron*
___
Please be in touch as soon as the date is announced!
MONDAY, 27 OCTOBER
– 6:00PM
David Chipperfield
Daniel Libeskind
* includes
Location:
Attire:
special private reception
Union Club, 101 East 69th Street
Jacket and Ties required for gentlemen
Yes - I’d like to become a supporter of the Soane:
Architects & Designers Circle ‘ $500
Friends ‘ $50 Supporters ‘ $100 Admirers ‘ $250
Patrons’ Circle ‘ $1,000 ‘ Other $___________
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Contribution Payment Options (basic session prices are not tax deductible; additional contributions are fully tax deductible.):
__ CHECK: Please make your check payable to SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM FOUNDATION, and return to the below address.
__ CREDIT CARD: American Express, Visa, MasterCard – No. _____________________________________________________
Name on the card: __________________________________ Exp. ______ Zip Code of Billing Address: ___________
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation 1040 First Avenue, No. 311 New York NY 10022
T. 212-223-2012 F. 860-435-8019 | www.SoaneFoundation.com
Online071108
Thoroughly Modern Soane
SIR JOHN SOANE (1753 - 1837) died at the age of 84 after a long and distinguished career as
an architect, teacher and collector. He left his London home, located at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, to the nation. It has
become the beloved Museum that we know today and remains the best example of his genius in design.
What is THOROUGHLY MODERN about SOANE?
Whilst Soane’s idiosyncratic and very personal style of architecture and design had its share of critics during his lifetime,
his stripped down classicism found new admirers in the 20th century and continues to attract appreciation from new
generations. Architects admire his handling of space and light and his buildings and ideas are regarded as stimulating
and relevant to architectural and interior design ideas of the 21st century.
But it was not until the 1920s that Soane’s work found a persuasive champion in the unlikely figure of Roger Fry. As
the organizer of two pioneering exhibitions in 1910 and 1912 Fry had brought the new French art from Manet to
Picasso to a somewhat dull London art scene, and he had since become the English spokesman for Modernism.
The controversial destruction of Soane’s masterpiece, The Bank of England, in 1925 ironically galvanized public
attention on Soane’s work.
Others followed: Mario Praz, the Italian writer and connoisseur, and the architect and polemicist Professor
Sir Albert Richardson were key figures in the first half of the twentieth century in promoting the Regency Revival,
and Soane’s work and Museum in particular. English architects Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (the designer behind the
famous K2 red telephone box) and Raymond Erith, owe much to Soane – whilst in the United States Robert
Venturi’s ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’ (1966) looked for ambiguities and complexities in the
architecture of the past that would reinforce a contemporary architecture of richness and meaning. Venturi drew
attention to many of theses qualities in Soane’s work; the complex combinations of shapes in his ceilings, the
partition of spaces in rooms in the form of suspended arches, the intricacies of planning and of spaces within
spaces, and the layering of canopies and domes.
During the Postmodern era of the later 1970s and 1980s there have been many reflections of Soanean themes
amongst a generation of architects and designers who find inspiration in Soane’s ideas. Philip Johnson,
Michael Graves, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Rafael Moneo and Denise Scott Brown amongst many others have
generously acknowledged their debt to Soane and have acknowledged how his Classicism manages to be both
conventional and deviant. The fact that Soane’s ideas continue to engage the attention of modern architects and
designers working in the early 21st century without inhibiting their own powers of invention, is probably his greatest
legacy. And Sir John Soane’s Museum’s role as a place of inspiration for contemporary architects and designers
from all over the world is perhaps more important today than ever before.
Sir John Soane’s Museum 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP | www.Soane.org
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation 1040 First Avenue, No. 311 New York NY 10022
T. 212-223-2012 F. 860-435-8019 | www.SoaneFoundation.com
THE SOANE SEMINARS: 2008
SEMINAR LIAISON:
Suzanne Stephens is a member of the Board of Directors of Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation. She teaches architectural
criticism at Barnard College and is a deputy editor of Architectural Record magazine.
LOCATIONS OF SEMINARS:
Our sessions will be held at the Union Club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
NOTE: business attire required
REGISTRATION:
Sessions - $30 per session, or Seminar Patron at $80 per session (includes a private reception following the talk).
Please complete attached response form and return by mail or fax to 860-435-8019. You may also register by e-mail or
call with credit card... please send to [email protected]
G
A BRIEF HISTORY of SIR JOHN SOANE and what is today the MUSEUM:
The architecture of Sir John Soane, R.A., was highly idiosyncratic. Soane was born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, and died after a long and
distinguished career, in 1837. As an English architect of significant influence during the last quarter of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, Soane worked within the parameters of the classical idiom to create unique commercial and residential structures. The Dulwich Picture
Gallery and portions of the Bank of England are among the few remaining examples of his distinctive style of public architecture. His London
home, located at Numbers 12 and 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, has become the Sir John Soane’s Museum and remains the best example of his genius
in the design of the residence.
Soane was a visionary who used his home as a laboratory for his ideas, the repository for his vast collections of 30,000 drawings; paintings
including works by Canaletto, Hogarth and Turner; architectural models; Greek and Roman sculpture and Egyptian Antiquities; 10,000 rare
books, including first editions of Milton and Shakespeare, as well as his very personal dwelling space.
No discussion of his work would be complete without mentioning his use of light. The Museum is filled with mirrors, domes, fantastic ceilings
and skylights with colored glass, used not only to light the rooms but also to create dramatic effects and to highlight the numerous plaster casts
and marble fragments that are artistically arranged in every available space throughout the house. Due to his foresight in leaving his home to
the public by Act of Parliament in 1833, Soane’s house and its contents survive today, exactly as they were in his time, giving the visitor a rare
glimpse into a middle class home of the period.
MISSION of FOUNDATION here in the UNITED STATES:
The Foundation provides unique educational programs for professionals and the layperson who relishes in-depth exploration of issues of
architecture and the fine and decorative arts. The Foundation also organizes trips here and aboard, provides a traveling fellowship each year
for an American graduate student or scholar to go to the Museum to further their work and research, and provides special project funding to
the Museum in London.
MEMBERS of the BOARD of the FOUNDATION:
Suzanna S. Allen, Laura Blanco, Margaret E. Carey, Gifford Combs, Faye Cone, Page Ayres Cowley, Anne Edgar, John W. Everets, Richard
A. Griffiths, Chippy Irvine, Thomas A. Kligerman, Susan P. Magee, Katherine McCormick, Wendy Lyon Moonan, Marita O’Hare, Barbara G.
Pine, John F. Saladino, Richard Sammons, J. Thomas Savage, Elizabeth H. Scott, Victoria Lea Smith, Kathleen E. Springhorn, Cynthia W.
Spurdle, Suzanne Stephens, Stephanie Stokes.
Director Emeritus: Samuel C. Miller. Advisory Board: Paul Byard, Michael Graves, Peter Pennoyer, Robert Venturi, Stuart Wrede. Other
Founders, past Members of the Board and Advisors have included: J. Carter Brown, Murray Douglas, Brenden Gill, Edgar Howard, Keith
Irvine, Philip Johnson, Charlotte Moss, Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Eugene V. Thaw, Bartholomew Voorsanger, Somers White, Bunny Williams.
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Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 organization – Tax ID Number: 13-3624437
VISIT OUR WEB SITE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND DETAILS: www.SoaneFoundation.com
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation | 1040 First Avenue, No. 311 | New York NY 10022
T. 212-223-2012 | www.SoaneFoundation.com | [email protected]