Work in Number 12 - Visitor Reception and Shop
The Ground floor of the Museum will now serve as the entrance to and exit from the Museum, as part of the new circular route around the Museum, removing much of the clutter of the rather congested Entrance Hall in Number 13. Coats and bags can be deposited in the new cloakroom, before visitors head to Number 13 and experience the entrance to a great Regency Collector’s house as Soane himself intended. The rear room, Soane’s famous Breakfast Parlour, will remain untouched as part of these restorations, but the front room, formerly the Soane Exhibition Gallery and in 1792 the family Dining Room, has been converted into the new Soane Shop. Designed by Caruso St John, and featuring custom built furniture by Goppion SpA, the free standing furniture allows the distinctive Soaneian interior to be appreciated whilst providing the Museum for the first time with a flexible exhibitions space. The distinctive paint scheme of 1792, again based on Dr Ian Bristow’s pioneering research, has been recreated by Hare and Humphreys, specialist decorators. Featuring Soane’s distinctive Etruscan or “Pompeian” red on the walls, the decorative lion’s heads bronzed and a dado rail of stained satin wood carefully reinstated.
