A seven-year, £7m project to restore the Sir John Soane’s Museum has been completed and will open tomorrow (13 September). Once the London home of the architect Soane (1753-1837), its eccentric interior is packed with his eclectic collection of sculptures, paintings and curios.
The main areas in the final phase of the Opening up the Soane project include the Catacombs (with Roman cinerary urns), the lobby to the Breakfast Room (with a hundred works of art and a glass-bottomed floor), the Apollo Recess (reinstating a wall to restore the integrity of the Dome area), the basement Ante Room (the butler’s pantry) and the Foyle exhibition space. Completion of the project means that 10% more of Soane’s collection is now on display.
The work also fully integrates three adjacent houses in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, numbers 12, 13 and 14. Major grants for the project were £2m from the Monument Trust (set up by the late Simon Sainsbury) and £800,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Soane (along with the Geffrye Museum) is the smallest UK national museum with central government funding, attracting around 120,000 visitors a year.