The Façade of Sir John Soane's Museum: A Study in Contextualism

Abstract

In 1792, 1808, and 1823, Soane bought three adjacent properties on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. In each case he had the existing house demolished and a new one erected. The fronts of these buildings ultimately produced the façade of what became known as Sir John Soane's Museum. A study of their design over a period of three decades shows how Soane's approach to the context of the street changed from accepting it as a physical reality to conceiving it as a theoretical ideal. In the process, the investigation also reveals the factors that shaped the different phases of the sequence.