SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM NEWSLETTER
NO.11 - SPRING 2006
CONTENTS
- A Letter from the Director
- Soane Foundation US Gala
- Museum News
- Exhibition News
- Forthcoming Events
- Soane Supporters' Circle
- The Library of Sir John Soane
- Schools and Families Education
- Newsletter Archive
The Museum has been busy over the last few months putting
the finishing touches on the works in the Monk's Yard, the courtyard
behind No.14 Lincoln's Inn Fields, the last stage of the HLF-funded
Three Courtyards project. Here Sir John Soane created a curious antiquarian
'garden' for the legendary denizen of the adjoining Monk's Parlour and
Cell, his monkish alter ego 'Padre Giovanni'. The 'Monastery' ruins,
built from fragments obtained from demolitions at the Old Palace of
Westminster in the 1820s, and the 'Tomb of the Monk', incorporating
the monument to Fanny, Mrs Soane's Manchester terrier, are now clean
and consolidated, while its strange pavement made from champagne bottles
and pebbles has been carefully restored. As soon as we have finished
reinstating the various items of sculpture in the Yard, we will be able
to give our visitors access for the first time to this atmospheric and
little-known Soanean courtyard garden.
Meanwhile,
by the time you read this, a large and long-awaited metal grille will
have arrived and been installed as the final element of the new stone
floor in the 'Corridor' outside the Picture Room. Smaller grilles like
this have already taken their place around the Dome area. Scary to walk
on, they were devised by Soane as a means of illuminating the gloomy
labyrinth he created around his prize Sarcophagus in the Crypt. They
impart a suitably dim light to this basement area, which will become
more like the interior of a Theban tomb, as Soane intended. Dramatic
contrasts of light and shade are very important at the Soane Museum,
and we are doing all we can to reinstate Soane's original effects -
discreetly helped out by modern technology. Indeed, I sometimes tell
visitors that I am the only National Museum Director who is actively
trying to make his museum darker! Of course, not all our visitors appreciate
the subtleties of Soanean lighting, but I think it is essential that
people are encouraged to understand and appreciate the way Soane exploited
extremes of light and darkness in his house-museum. The grilles were
installed with the aid of a generous grant from the Wolfson Foundation,
and, thanks to a further grant from the DCMS, we will be continuing
our campaign to put back Soane's effects while at the same time upgrading
the older electrical installations in the Museum. One of our next targets
will be to review the lighting in the Library-Dining Room, and see if
we can improve on the quaintly named 'lustre bags', installed in 1957,
currently in place here.
This building work out of the way, the Museum can at last embark upon
our major project for 2006, the restoration of No.14 Lincoln's Inn Fields.
We will begin work in April, with completion of the week project planned
for early 2007. The work of decorating and fitting up No.14 will occur
in early to mid-2007 and we hope to be in a position to open it by the
autumn. I would like to thank our supporters and donors, both public
and private, for their patience over what has been a very protracted
period of planning and fundraising. The new building will at last give
the Museum proper facilities for its increasingly important educational
work, as well as making the superb first-floor double Drawing Room available
for a wide range of events. With its 'triumphal arch' feature, ceiling
vault and chimneypiece, and other stylish Regency features, this handsome
Soane interior deserves to be better known and enjoyed. Thanks to the
planned relocation of our offices from No.13, we also have exciting
plans for the Museum's research facilities, including the Adam Study
Centre, and for opening more of Soane's original interiors to the public,
including, potentially, his original Model Room.
Exhibitions are an excellent way of bringing new audiences into the
Museum, and our current show, Pistrucci's Capriccio: a Rediscovered
Masterpiece of Regency Sculpture, (1 February to 18 March 2006) makes
use of Soane's North Drawing Room as the setting for a small display
of works by the Roman medallist and gem cutter Benedetto Pistrucci.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is his curious and beautiful marble
sculpture, the Capriccio, only recently rediscovered and on view to
the general public for the first time. The exhibition has been made
possible by a generous grant from Lord Rothschild and is a collaboration
between the Soane Museum and the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon
Manor, where the show will later travel on to. Sadly, our planned show
of works by the American light artist James Turrell will not now be
going ahead, but we have substituted in its place (March to August 2006)
a display of the spectacular watercolours of Joseph Michael Gandy, Soane's
favourite architectural draughtsman. This exhibition, to be curated
by Christopher Woodward, will coincide with the publication, by Thames
and Hudson, of Professor Brian Lukacher's monograph on Gandy in Spring
2006.
Elsewhere in this Newsletter there are reports on the very successful
New York Gala Dinner hosted by our American fundraising affiliate, Sir
John Soane's Museum Foundation, on our burgeoning new Supporters' Circle,
and on the progress of our Library Catalogue Project, as well as much
else. My thanks to those whose hard work has made these initiatives
possible, and to all of you who support the Soane Museum in various
ways.
.Tim Knox
SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM FOUNDATION
US Gala - A Great Success
On
9 November more than 300 architects, architects, designers, writers,
art collectors, and other supporters gathered at the Mandarin Oriental
Hotel, New York, to celebrate 'The Singular Sir John Soane'. This spectacular
event was superbly organised by Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation,
on the occasion of its fifteenth anniversary, as a fundraising event
for the Museum in London and the Foundation's activities in the US.
The Museum is grateful to all those who supported the event in different
ways and hopes that they will continue to take an interest and support
the activities of our US Foundation who have done so much to help the
Museum over the years. The event raised the impressive sum of $140,000
- an excellent result.
The Gala was attended by Viscount Linley (pictured above with Bob Silver)
who travelled from London specifically to support the event and to take
part in a conversation with Tim Knox as a main attraction of the gala.
Also present was the British Ambassador to the US - Sir David Manning
and his wife Catherine. Supporters from the UK included Debbie Brice,
Lanto Synge, Jeremy Garfield-Davies, Molly and David Borthwick and Alison
Gowman.
This
was the largest gathering to date of Soane supporters in the US and
a testament to how well-known and popular the Museum is with US visitors
to London. The gala enabled Tim Knox and Mike Nicholson to meet with
many of our US Patrons and supporters and to give them news on developments
at the Museum and our plans for the future. (Right: Tim Knox with the
British Ambassador Dir David Manning and Founation President Chippy
Irvine)
A second US Gala is being planned for 25 April 2007, which will take
place at the Rainbow Room on the 75th floor of the Rockefeller Centre.
It would be wonderful if more of our UK friends, Patrons and Supporters
could join us then. For more information, please contact Mike Nicholson
(0207 440 4241 or mnicholson@soane.org.uk).
Click here to visit the
Soane Foundation website
Mike Nicholson
The
Director's letter describes the culmination of the Three Courtyards
project with the conservation of the Monk's Yard by Taylor Pearce Restoration
and the pebble and bottle-top paving by Cliveden Conservation. Cliveden
have also laid a new section of pebble paving through the passage out
to the Monk's Yard - the original paving was removed after Soane's death
and replaced by concrete. The reinstallation of works of art in the
Monk's Yard in January has finally completed the restoration of the
Three Courtyards, sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund and begun in
2003. The Museum has gained immeasurably from the works, including the
restoration of the South Passage Recess in the basement, the re-creation
of Soane's pasticcio in the Monument Court, the reinstating of the original
Rear Kitchen and the renewal of all underground drainage and boilers.
Alongside the Three Courtyards project the Museum has renewed antiquated
heating and wiring at the back of the building with funding from the
Wolfson/DCMS Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund. The reinstatement
of the original stone floor in the Museum Corridor was part of this
work and it was in the course of preparations for this that Julian Harrap
Architects discovered that the walls of the Corridor were structurally
unsound and in danger of collapse. Works to rectify this, reported in
the last Newsletter, began last year with the aid of a generous emergency
grant from the DCMS.
The final phase is to repair the original hinges on the south planes
in the adjacent Picture Room, which have slightly dropped causing them
to jam. Fortunately, this work can be carried out without having to
take down the planes which are extremely heavy. The works should lift
each plane the required 6mm to restore full clearance. We hope to move
our Hogarth paintings back into the Picture Room during February and
to re-open the Picture Room in March.
While the works to the planes are carried out we have the pleasurable
job of restoring all the works of art to their positions in the Museum
Corridor. This includes the exciting prospect of putting objects moved
elsewhere in the past back into their original positions - Soane had
a wonderful eye for visual composition and it is amazing how moving
an object back to its original position can suddenly give it a whole
new meaning within a display.
An example which will have a particular impact is the large Roman marble
fountain fragment now back in its position as an 'eye-catcher' along
the Museum South Corridor (it was moved many years ago to enable the
installation of a radiator which has now been removed). We have also
moved Thomas Banks's model for the tomb of Penelope Boothby back into
its original position in the Museum Corridor where the small figure
of the child, shown as if not dead but sleeping, now appears as Soane
originally intended, its 'unadorned simplicity' contrasting with the
surrounding 'wrestling gladiators' and 'mighty fragments from [Roman]
temples'.
Finally, two major groups of objects, long in storage or elsewhere in
the building, will be restored to the basement, giving it back more
of its original crowded quality. We will be reinstating an arrangement
of busts on columns around the sarcophagus, removed in the late 19th
century - probably when the cover was put over the sarcophagus in 1866.
We will also be moving an elegant 18th-century table, currently in the
front hall, back to the Basement Ante-Room, with its original marble
top (currently in store) and putting back an arrangement of six busts
- including fine portraits of the French scientist Cuvier and the actor
J P Kemble.
Conservation of the Collections
The Museum has been awarded a grant under the Care of Collections programme
administered by Archives, Libraries and Museums London (ALM London)
to buy equipment to monitor environmental conditions across our three
buildings. Soane's collections are on the whole in remarkably good condition,
having remained in and adapted to their environment for the last 170-200
years. However, it is vital to understand what it happening in the building
in terms of temperature and humidity and to find out if the greatly
increased visitor numbers over the past decade are affecting the collections
adversely. The monitoring equipment (to be installed in February) is
radio controlled and extremely discreet. The data collected will be
automatically logged via a computer programme in a form which can be
easily analysed.
Accreditation
As one of the group of museums Designated as having collections of
outstanding national importance the Soane was invited in March 2005
to apply to become an Accredited Museum in the first round of a new
scheme administered by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (a
scheme which replaces the old system of Registration for museums). We
are delighted to report that the Soane achieved full Accreditation in
the first batch of Museums to be considered.
Soane Drawings Return Home
The
Museum has received an exceptionally generous gift from one the Directors
of Sir John Soane's Museum Society, Niall Hobhouse, in the form of a
portfolio of material relating to the Museum which once belonged to
C J Richardson. Richardson was one of two assistants still employed
in Soane's office at the time of his death in January 1837 and he removed
a considerable number of drawings and engravings from the office - some
of which were perhaps given or lent to him, some of which may have been
taken without permission. One large Richardson cache forms the bulk
of the Soane collection at the V&A, another group was assembled
by Richardson into a volume now in the British Library. The portfolio
given to the Museum by Mr Hobhouse is yet another put together by Richardson
containing many loose engravings (some of which are proofs) from Soane's
1835 Description of the Museum. However, in amongst these are six or
seven unique drawings of arrangements in the Museum in the 1820s, made
by Richardson as part of his work for Soane. One of these is a particularly
important pencil drawing of the front elevation of No.13 (pictured)
when it had a mansard roof at second floor level (before 1825) - although
we knew from documentary evidence that this was the arrangement there
are no other views showing it.
Roxburghe Club Visit
On 14 November we were delighted to host an evening visit by members
of the Roxburghe Club, a group of distinguished bibliophiles who continue
to uphold the traditions of a club founded to mark the great sale of
the library of the 5th Duke of Roxburghe in 1812.
Sue Palmer, Eileen Harris and Stephen Massil had assembled an extensive
display of books in the Dining Room and Library, and it was perhaps
not too fanciful to imagine Soane beaming down with pride at the sight
of such an illustrious group poring over his collection.Care had been
taken to select books that would appeal to the particular bibliographic
interests of each of the participants, from armorial bindings, to family
bookplates and Horace Walpole, and to judge by the excited buzz of conversation
and comment this was particularly appreciated.
But the occasion was not entirely altruistic - we were keen to seize
the chance to profit from the wealth of knowledge present, and to find
answers to some of our current queries particularly in the field of
bindings. Many helpful comments were made and leads given both during
the course of the evening and in subsequent correspondence, and we look
forward to continuing this fruitful and stimulating relationship.
The cause célèbre of the evening turned out to be Soane's
copy of the Shakespeare First Folio which had previously belonged to
John Kemble, the actor. Members were aghast to see that the pages had
been cut and inlaid into larger sheets in the early nineteenth century,
apparently a common practice of Kemble's so that he could annotate the
pages.
susan palmer
Soane Greeting Cards
Those of you who admired the Soane Museum Christmas cards this year - reproducing bizarre engravings of architectural masquerade costumes from E-A Petitot's Mascarade à la grecque, published in Parma in 1771 - are reminded that they bear no message, so can be used to amuse and inspire your friends all year round. The cards are sold in sets of four (one of each design) and cost just £5 for 1 set, £10 for 2 sets, and £25 for 6 sets, excluding postage and packaging. To order please contact Julie Brock: jbrock@soane.org.uk (020 7440 4263). Click here for more details.
New Volunteers
The Museum has made another special acquisition, in the form of three
wonderful Volunteers who are helping us update our Collections Inventory
and sort out our photographic archive. Diana Gordon, Eve Streatfeild
and Kate Wilkinson volunteered for many years with the National Trust
at Queen Anne's Gate and have come to the Soane on the closure of the
Trust's London offices. We welcome them to the Museum and are very grateful
for their commitment, enthusiasm and hard work.
Helen Dorey
Soane's Magician: The Tragic Genius of Joseph Michael Gandy
31 March to 12 August 2006
One
of twelve sons of a waiter at White's, Joseph Gandy rose from teenage
prodigy to become Britain's greatest ever architectural draughtsman.
Although excelling as a student and enjoying a success on his grand
tour, he failed to establish himself as an architect and, instead, spent
much of his career as the 'visualising amanuensis' of John Soane. In
many ways Gandy exemplifies the romantic agony of his age - despite
his acknowledged artistic genius his life was embittered by a sense
of persecution and failure. He died in a windowless and dark cell in
an asylum in Plymouth.
John Soane employed Gandy from 1798 to translate his architectural plans
and elevations into dramatic and luminous perspective drawings - translations
that would become increasingly inventive and fantastic as the relationship
developed. Thus, it is through Gandy's drawings that we can now best
understand both Soane's mastery of space and light and his inner life
as a visionary romantic.
Curated by Sir John Soane's Museum, and timed to coincide with the publication
of the major new monograph on Gandy by Brian Lukacher (Thames &
Hudson), this is the first exhibition to focus on the genius of Gandy
and his relationship with John Soane, his great patron. The display
will explore how Soane nurtured and exploited Gandy's genius to fulfil
his own professional and visionary ambitions and will feature rarely
seen drawings and sketchbooks from the Soane Museum archive.
John Betjeman: A Passion for Architecture
8 September to 30 December 2006
This autumn the Museum will be mounting a major exhibition celebrating
the architectural writings, recordings and films of the poet Sir John
Betjeman (1906-1984), marking the centenary of his birth. The display
will include rare archive material, photographic and film footage as
well as original art work from Betjeman's friends and contemporaries
such as John Piper, in a celebration of his life-long passion for architecture.
From his bicycle tours of Victorian North Oxford as a young student,
to his hard-fought campaigns to save endangered masterpieces such as
St Pancras Station in the 1960s, architecture remained Betjeman's great
love. Following a spell at the Architectural Review in the 1930s, he
went on to edit the iconic Shell Guides and, after the war, became increasingly
well known for his television work - his long, successful career as
a broadcaster reaching its peak with his classic film Metro-land.
As well as encouraging a better understanding of Britain's greatest
towns and buildings Betjeman was a tireless promoter of the marginal,
the overlooked and the obscure. His love for Victoriana (he was a founder
member of the Victorian Society in the 1960s) and his passionate pleas
to preserve Britain's railway architecture is credited with instigating
the great revival of interest in buildings of the 19th century.
John Betjeman: A Passion for Architecture will be curated by Betjeman's
daughter, the writer and journalist Candida Lycett Green. A major new
catalogue, featuring contributions by Dan Cruickshank, Alan Powers,
Gavin Stamp and Ptolemy Dean, will be published to accompany the exhibition.
For those who are familiar with Betjeman's work this exhibition will
provide a feast of new material and a rare opportunity to view vintage
footage. For those unfamiliar with the man it will provide an irresistible
introduction to one of the greatest architectural writers and broad-casters
of the 20th century.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
'Beyond Curiosity' - New Lecture Series -
Special offer for members of the Soane Supporters' Circle
A new series of lectures in conjunction with the Royal Institution
and the Royal College of Surgeons will explore London's most avid collectors
of natural history and architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, asking the questions, what is it that inspires them and when
does interest turn into obsession?
Following successful joint events in 2004-5, this latest collaboration
has produced these intriguingly titled and thought-provoking talks,
to be chaired by Professor Lisa Jardine.
On
16 May Tim Knox, our Director, will look at 'Soane's Museum and Cottingham's
Museum; rival architectural museums of Regency London?'. The long-vanished
but extraordinary house-museum of the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham
(1787-1847) on Waterloo Bridge Road was an exact contemporary of Soane's
own Museum. Cottingham's 'Museum of Medieval Art' was rich in specimens
of Gothic and early English architecture, and included perhaps the earliest
sequence of 'period rooms' in any museum. Sold up in 1851, it is recorded
by an illustrated Descriptive Memoir and a Sale Catalogue. Tim Knox
will compare Cottingham's lost collection with Soane's surviving one,
and touch upon other collections of architectural casts and fragments
formed by architects and antiquaries of the Regency era. Audience members
will be invited to walk over to Sir John Soane's Museum for a special
evening visit after the lecture.
On 25 October, 2006 Victor Gray, former Director of the Rothschild Archive
and President of the Society of Archivists, will look at the fantastic
specimens of Walter Rothschild, zoological collector extraordinaire,
examining the interaction between personal motivation and contemporary
preoccupations that underlies the work of the collector.
Details of a special visit to Tring in October will be announced
nearer the time.
Booking Details
Soane's Museum and Cottingham's Museum; rival architectural museums
of Regency London? by Tim Knox
Tuesday 16 May, 7pm to 8.15pm
Details of the lecture on 25 October to follow.
The talks will take place at The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London wc2a 3pe. Ticket should be booked through the Royal Institution by visiting the website, www.rigb.org or calling the Events Team on 020 7409 2992.
Members of the Soane Supporters' Circle can book at the special price of £6. Please quote - 'Soane Supporter' when you book. For others, the fee is £8 for an individual lecture or £20 for all three.
SUPPORTING THE MUSEUM
Soane Supporters' Circle
As you will know, this Newsletter has been especially compiled by the
curators and staff of the Museum for members of the Soane Supporters'
Circle and other friends. This scheme, which was launched in September,
has been very successful so far and we are delighted with the number
of regular readers of the Newsletter who have since become members of
the Supporters' Circle. We are greatly encouraged by the level of interest
that has been shown and if, like our Supporters, you would like to continue
receiving this Newsletter, then we hope many more of you will join.
The Supporters' Newsletter allows us to keep our members up to date
on all the Museum's latest news and activities and give advance notice
of our annual series of lectures and other events. This year for example,
our Supporters are invited to attend a special series of lectures entitled
Beyond Curiosities, which has been organised in conjunction with the
Royal Institution and the Royal College of Surgeons (further details
are included).
For a minimum of just £2.50 per month, you could be helping us
to ensure that the Museum can be cared for and maintained just as Soane
intended. A donation of £30 a year for example, will pay for the
surface cleaning of one of the many small pieces of sculpture or plaster
casts within Soane's vast collection.
If you would like further details of how to become a member of the Supporters'
Circle then please contact Claudia Celder, Development Officer, Sir
John Soane's Museum, 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP, 020 7440
4240/41, ccelder@soane.org.uk or you can go to the Supporters
page on the website or pick up a leaflet from the Museum.
Thanks again to all who have already joined as Supporters and for the
many very generous donations we have received in support of the Museum's
work.
THE LIBRARY OF SIR JOHNS SOANE'S MUSEUM
Soane's library is the vital heart of the Museum, cherished, cultivated
and studied for nearly 200 years. Some of the books are Soane's longest-held
possessions, dating from his school days as his studentship at the Royal
Academy. The three years I have spent cataloguing Soane's library has
brought me to the heart of the architect's intellectual world, and I
am sad to be leaving.
The
library is currently divided between the 'Architectural' and the 'General';
the former is in the process of being catalogued by Eileen Harris and
Nick Savage and comprises the major architectural texts, fine arts volumes,
publications of the Royal Academy, topographical, travel-related, and
other extensively illustrated works. Although the architectural library
contains many splendid art books and sumptuously printed architectural
treatises, the general library harbours its own delights. Furthermore,
it is this part of Soane's library that reveals not only the workings
of the architect's mind but how he perceived himself and his place in
the world. The backbone to Soane's literary collection is English -
works by Defoe, Addison, Hobbes, Browne, Milton, Gray, Sterne, Richardson,
Fielding and, of course, his great hero Shakespeare. Then there are
the works of history and science - the dictionaries, encyclopaedias,
technological handbooks, manuals and calculators for tax that reflect
the interests of an enlightened, professional man, as well as the philosophical
and theoretic volumes that relate to Soane's interest in neo-classical
theory and the sublime - many of these French.
The general library is not large, consisting of some 5,000 titles augmented
by an impressive collection of sale catalogues and bound pamphlets and
tracts encompassing sermons, patents, parliamentary papers, technology,
playbills (as well as a busy architect, Soane was a member of learned
and artistic societies, a vestryman, magistrate, voter, freemason, subscriber,
collector and philanthropist). His library, like his Museum, is also
homage to his masters, colleagues, heroes, and friends. There are works
from the sales of Chambers, Adam, Reynolds, West, Nash, Beckford, Walpole,
Hamilton, Garrick, and many others.
Soane looked after his books and read most of them: some are heavily
marked and those in French and Italian are sometimes annotated and revised.
He records their prices and often signs and dates their acquisition.
Occasionally there are indications of former ownership (in bookplates,
inscriptions and bindings) and often there are inscriptions from authors,
colleagues, friends and admirers. Soane's library can be examined as
a source for the study of publishing and printing in his time, for the
building practices, patents and projects of the era, for the institutions
of the time and the lectures and programmes they promoted, and for the
fashions and predispositions of the sale rooms of the day.
Over the past three years a new library catalogue database has been
developed, containing highly detailed records - eventually to be offered
on the Museum's website for internet access. This already offers the
facility to search for names, titles, and keywords, with precision that
allows readers to trace connections in Soane's reading and collecting.
This has been further enhanced by the integration of the earlier phases
of the cataloguing of the architecture library into the general database.
This new catalogue will extend the Museum's reputation and deepen an
appreciation of the great depth and scope of Soane's library.
Stephen Massil
Stephen Massil's three-year post as library cataloguer was part
funded by the Designation Challenge Fund.
EDUCATION AT THE SOANE
Schools and Families Education Service
In addition to running workshops and tours of the Museum, the Schools
and Families Education Service has been 'on the road' this winter taking
models, facsimiles, 'challenges' and sundry builders' supplies to venues
across London.
Bridges
and Light workshops took place at the in-patient Education Unit at St
George's Hospital, Tooting. Students from a wide range of ages discovered
how Soane used the effects of light in his Museum and how different
bridge structures work. Abilities, affected by pre- and post-surgery
procedures also varied widely, some students came in their beds, hooked
up to drips or struggling with dressings and plasters. A brain surgery
patient stayed for the whole session having previously managed ten minutes
at most - one of many rewarding outcomes.
Organising 'Concrete Crushathon' sessions for Camden Schools at the
St Pancras Channel Tunnel Rail Link Visitors' Centre has provided different
challenges. Architect-engineer Anderson Inge originally designed the
Crushathon for Foundation Year architecture students and adapted it
for the Soane Education Unit to use with schools. Students mix and pour
concrete into variously reinforced beam moulds returning three weeks
later to discover, by testing the beams to destruction, the risks of
straying from calculated specifications. With earthquakes in mind, building
professionals from one of the largest construction sites in Europe on
hand and one of Anderson's college Crushathons on video, they enthusiastically
took the first steps towards a possible future career. Volunteers abounded:
one described it as 'the best trip ever', others, eager to test every
beam, had to be encouraged to leave as the sessions ended.
During four 'Spacemaker' Saturday Architecture Workshops families transformed
temporary workspace at a local community centre with 'lumière
mysterieuse' experiments, hand-printed friezes, natural forms, cast
in plaster and gilded, and miniature theatres. At Dragon Hall capacity
and scope for messy activities is limited but the opportunity to continue
Saturday Family Workshops during Museum restoration work is very welcome.
Jane Monahan