The Soane Museum

This interest in the real, as opposed to the conjectured nature of the classical architecture, was taken even further by men of the caliber of John Soane (1753-1837), whose private house seen here contains a remarkable collection of models, casts, drawing and actual fragments of ancient architecture. Attitudes toward the formal and the Palladian began to shift. The degree to which the simple brick elevations of the earlier houses in Lincoln Inn Fields could be altered by the addition of this front, is evidence enough. But this is not just another facade; it is a spatial extension of the interior into the outer world, and employs many of the features we know now as the curtain wall.