So I am taking a Classic Civilization class, super easy, but still really interesting. Today we had an optional field trip to a tiny little museum. It's the house of an architect and professor of architecture from the late eighteen hundreds. John Soane, the prof, started collecting random artifacts, paintings and elements of architecture and displayed them in his home. When he died he left his entire collection and home to the city stating that it was to be a musuem open to the public with one stipulation, nothing was to be moved or changed. Meaning it is not only exactly the same as it was the day he died but also that none of the artifacts can be sold or donated to museums. I'm sure the British Museum would love to get there hands on half the stuff in there, but they can't.
So the museum is still housed in his flat. Its a three story townhouse and all the rooms are just covered floor to ceiling with old stuff. My professor called it a knick knack shack. There is no real order or organization to it and its super informal unlike any other museum I've been in. You just wander through the house looking at all his stuff.
[ Inside Soane's house on the ground floor ]
There were two parts that I really enjoyed. First of all, him and his wife lived in this house and his wife a lapdog named Fanny. One room has about half a dozen portraits of him, and every painting of Mrs. Soane, has fanny on her lap. So in one of the little tiny courtyards of the house (which Soane designed himself) is a huge monument, like almost Roman memorial big, that merely states, "Alas, poor Fanny." That dog was clearly family.
The second part of the house that i really enjoyed was in the basement there is a huge white limestone Egyptian sarcophagus. Every inch of it is carved with hieroglyphs, its beautiful. The entire basement was designed to feel like an ancient Roman crypt, which it does.
[ part of the basement that opens up the the ground. The case on the left has the sarcophagus inside it ]
The basement has tiny rooms with narrow winding halls between them. The only light comes from little skylights or areas that open up to the ground floor, so its quite dark. But every inch is covered with marble Roman statues, columns and capitals, pieces of friezes and all sorts of other architectural details that have been taken from ancient temples. It was really astounding. I would love to live there surrounded by all that all the time. Maybe I'll make a knick knack shack of my own someday.
Check it out Soane for yourself.
creepy
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