Exhibition builds up to Sir John Soane’s Museum restoration projects

The Sir John Soane’s Museum in London reveals details of two restoration projects this week as it launches an exhibition designed by Charles Marsden-Smedley.

The exhibition, Bob the Roman: Heroic Antiquity & the Architecture of Robert Adam is a largely graphical treatment due to the confines of the museum’s exhibition space, designed by architect Eva Jiricna.

Marsden-Smedley will also create signage and wayfinding, an important consideration as the exhibition space is in a different building to the main entrance.

Separately, the museum is spending £550 000 Heritage Lottery Fund money on restoring the ‘three courtyards’ complex at the museum and £1.3m in restoration of Number 14, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The work is timed to coincide with this year’s 250th anniversary of its founder’s birth and both projects will be designed by Julian Harrap Architects.

Assistant curator Will Palin says the restoration will feature Soane’s ‘fantasy medieval’ folly the Monk’s Yard (pictured) – ‘a Gothic novel in three dimensions’ – and the 9m Pasticcio monument.