Search results

Marc Brousse Back to top

The following text is an interview between Viola Turrell of the Soane Museum Youth Panel and Marc Brousse.

VT: What is your greatest source of inspiration?

MB: I am fascinated by the art of building – from ancient times to the present. For decades, civilisations arose from urban and architectural cultures. Utopian architecture has been dreamt to express an escape from history, to give a moral vision of the world; the representation in the architectural realm is relevant to represent these notions.

I have developed my singular style from the research I have conducted into the history of the line, several architecture treaties from the Renaissance to the present and the notion of ‘parti et poché’ to represent architecture.

I have also been influenced by various artists such as François Schuiten, who has the ability to generate cities with intriguing architecture; M.C. Escher and his work on curved and cylindrical perspectives; Giorgio de Chirico with his metaphysical principles and his ability to recondition our time-thinking; and Jean-Jacques Lequeu or Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s pictorial and fictitious representations.

VT: What is the primary focus of your drawing?

MB: Throughout my art and architectural research, I developed my urban poetry ‘traitillism’ technique, which permits me to interweave figurative and abstract styles to express both the infinite and infinitely small. I believe the line symbolises life, space, thought and memory. Thus, I capture nature and architecture’s rhythm, allowing me to represent a specific vision of space and the world, changing our way of thinking about cities and the environments that compose us.

During my travels, I observed the various dialogues between nature and architecture: the urban scar upon nature and also the taming of nature by man. Moreover, I consider the epigenetic principle which states that development is the outcome of behaviour and environment; I apply this concept to urban development. Globally, the founding principles of civilisations are done through urban cultures nourished by symbols and utopias to engrave identity and generate the memory of places. Therefore, I tend to reveal through my drawings the fundamental values of our environment.

VT: How do you consider human interaction/usage within your space?

MB: I develop drawings according to different series or collections to formulate allegories between man, nature and architectural creation. These include:

- Revealing the intimate link between the architecture of man and nature. Every city is a unique species, a living organism formulated of different strata and rhythms, in the sense that the juxtaposition between buildings and spaces constitute the epigenetic programme for that place. As a developmental principle, epigenesis means that buildings do not merely echo the existing milieu but add something new and dynamic to the urban context. And the way in which people dwell in the city implements this epigenetic programme.

- Questioning the position of man within the city as a global, abstract and even elusive identity. Urban artefacts allow us to observe the relationship and scale of man in its context, a language he creates, generated through principles of complexity and contradiction architecture, composed with proportion he defines or characteristics issued by nature such as the Fibonacci sequence for example.

- Looking at the collection ‘gazing the crossroads of civilisation’ reveals, on one side, the soul of the city as an ultimate man-made expression of holistic principles. Through a dialogue between the architecture of man and nature, my drawings question the position of man within the city as a global, abstract and even elusive identity.

VT: What's most important to you when you design architecture?

MB: As the poet Chawki Abdelamir once said, ‘when time stops it becomes location’.

Architectural drawing has to express a spatial configuration to formulate a message, an emotion, an atmosphere, a place with memory and identity. I try to interweave the ‘traitillism’ technique with architectural codes and subjects I want to develop to generate a strong narrative drawing with which people can appropriate and interact.

Our memory, combined with the art of building, spatial experience and our capacity to take ownership of spaces, is defined according to the mounting of architectural artefacts and fragments of the environment because we define them as spaces of historic, scientific or even emotional interest – a space that is important for something, as opposed to everything.

I try to create a go-between: a hyphen between history, my architectural vision, and your eye and grey matter. I do this in order to imprint fragments of territories in your memory and stir emotions in the observation and the interaction with these illustrated places.

VT: Finally, a word of advice to aspiring architects?

MB: Like artists, I think it is relevant for architects to know and acknowledge the past as a tool to express modernity.

We often forget that urban development is part of the natural environment and not the contrary. Nowadays, nature is considered a tool, an ingredient, to formulate ‘sustainable’ architecture. We should reconsider how the natural grid can organise urban settings and redefine the way in which we dwell in cities.

Finally, I think it is a shame that most of the architecture we produce nowadays largely does not take into account the notion of harmonic rules and proportion relating to nature’s characteristics, such as those that enabled us to develop major architectural styles like the Gothic, Renaissance and Art Nouveau.

Buying and Retail Manager Back to top

Buying and Retail Manager

The historic house, museum and library of Sir John Soane is at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the heart of London.  At Soane’s request, the house has been left untouched since his death – almost 180 years ago.

It’s an intimate, atmospheric place, designed by Soane himself, and filled with his eccentric collection of furniture, sculptures, famous artworks, and artefacts.

Our shop, a beautifully restored regency style space, is the last room our visitors pass through before leaving the Museum, and how much our visitors spend in our shop is a direct reflection of how much (or little) they have enjoyed their visit to the Museum. 

The Buying and Retail Manager role heads up all our retail activity and is responsible for Retail Assistants and Guide Book Sellers who work in the shop and entrance to the Museum, and our rapidly growing online sales.

We are looking for a person who has proven experience in handling all the aspects of managing and operating a small retail business from replenishment, merchandising and invoicing through to the creative side of product development and visual merchandising.

The Buying and Retail Manager is responsible for continuing to develop our retail business ensuring we grow our average visitor spend and transaction value both in the shop and online through great exclusive products which are desirable to our visitors, excellent visual merchandising and marketing and having a firm hand on managing the margin.

For more information and how to apply please download the job description below.

Stay in touch Back to top

Sign up to our email newsletters, and be the first to hear about our exhibitions, programmes, and family activities, and receive news and offers from the Soane Museum Shop.

Sign up today >

Erdem Moralioglu Back to top

Erdem Moralioglu

ERDEM is an independent house of bold fashion for women, based in London. Founded in 2005 by designer Erdem Moralioglu, the brand has forged its own path within the industry. Poetic and rigorous, ageless and timeless, powerful and versatile, Erdem’s world is an intriguing interplay of strength and beauty.

In fifteen years, Erdem has established an exuberant language of femininity that transcends fashion to inspire strength and confidence in the women for whom he designs. It is a passionate language that is evocative and eccentric in character, fluently spoken with a beauty that is intense and romantic.

The house of ERDEM is cultured and erudite, underpinned by a belief in the power and skill of craftsmanship. Mind and hand work together to bring imagination to life with precision, artistry and the compelling dexterity of the handmade. Respect for traditional skills is combined with an excitement for innovation, in technique and application.

Erdem is at heart a storyteller. Collections are formed around a narrative championing heroic women at a particular place and a moment in time. Erdem’s fashion is dramatic, atmospheric and expressive in the service of emotion: it is not what she wears, but how she feels that matters.

Coming Soon Back to top

Every two weeks we will release a new speaker from this series. draft text here.

About the hosts Back to top

Alice Rawsthorn

Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author whose latest book is the critically acclaimed Design as an Attitude. Her weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade. Alice has spoken at important events including TED and the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice is chair of trustees at The Hepworth Wakefield art gallery in Yorkshire and Chisenhale Gallery in London. A founding member of the Writers for Liberty campaign for human rights, Alice was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.

Will Gompertz

Will Gompertz is the BBC's first Arts Editor, a senior journalistic role he took up in 2009. As well as regularly reporting on the arts for the main BBC News bulletins, Today Programme and numerous other outlets, Will hosts his own radio show on BBC 5-Live, and has written and presented numerous primetime series for television and radio.

Before joining the BBC, Will spent 7 years as a Director at the Tate Galleries where he was responsible for its BAFTA-winning website and the UK's first Performance Art festival.

In 2012 Will wrote What Are You Looking At?, a critically acclaimed best-selling book on modern art, published by Penguin and subsequently translated into 20 languages. Will's second book, Think Like an Artist, is about creativity and was published by Penguin in 2015. It has been translated into 18 different languages.

Will is a respected and well-known commentator on the Arts, and has written for The Times, The Guardian, and Vanity Fair among many others.

Digital resources Back to top

Explore Soane is our digital platform for exploring the Museum virtually from the comfort of your own home.

After-school club Back to top

Building Explorers is our popular after-school club for children from the local area. We meet on Tuesdays in term time, with members from Years 4 and 5 in our three closest Primary Schools: St Clement Danes, St George the Martyr and Christopher Hatton. The club explores architecture and the built environment across time and place, developing the club members’ knowledge, creativity and design skills. We also take trips to important buildings and places in London to learn more about the architectural make-up of our city.

For more information, email education@soane.org.uk or call 020 7440 4253.

This club is generously funded by the Alan Baxter Foundation.

Stay in touch 

Be the first to hear about any updates from our Learning Team by signing up to our families newsletter. 

Family visiting tips Back to top

We are delighted to welcome families to the Museum. The Soane is different to most museums, so here are a few tips to help you make the most of your visit:

• The Museum has lots of narrow passageways and the collection is on open display. This means that we ask visitors to be careful not to touch anything, including walls and furniture, during their visit.
• The Museum has some uneven flooring, with grilles in some places, through which you can see the floor below.
• We do not have dedicated buggy parking space inside the Museum; there is limited buggy parking available in the outside courtyard at Nos. 12 and 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
• There are baby changing facilities available at the Museum in No. 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
• For information about access at the Museum, please visit our Accessibility page here.
• As Soane intended, there are no labels on objects in the Museum. So we have created a family trail which you can pick-up as you enter, or download from below: