NEW YORK - Tuesday, 4 December 2007, 6:00pm - LECTURE + BOOK SIGNING

MOVING ROOMS: THE TRADE IN ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGES
By JOHN HARRIS

presented by the ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION with co-sponsors
YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART and
SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM FOUNDATION
at the Abigail Adams Smith Auditorium, 417 East 61st Street.  There will also be a book signing.
Additional funding for this R.O.F. evening has been generously provided by Lewis I. Haber and Carmen Dubroc.

JOHN HARRIS - Mr. Harris is an independent scholar and worked for the Royal Institute of British Architects for over 30 years.  He now serves as Curator Emeritus of the RIBA’s Drawings Collection. He has published many books on architecture, gardens, and decorative arts, including Carlo Fontana: The Drawings at Windsor Castle (1987), The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick (1994), Sir William Chambers: Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the V&A (1996), as well as the popular No Voice from the Hall: Early Memories of a Country House Snooper (1998).  His most recent is Badminton: The Duke of Beaufort his House; and the exhibition catalogue with Robert Hradsky for the Soane exhibition “A Passion for Building: the Amateur Architect in England 1650-1850."

NEW YORK - Reservations are required.  Register online at www.royal-oak.org/lectures
or call Robert Dennis at 212/480-2889, ext. 201. 
Please be sure to identify that you are a supporter of Soane Foundation to get the member rate.

LONDON - THE ANNUAL SOANE LECTURE Wednesday, 21 November 2007, 6:30pm

MOVING ROOMS: THE TRADE IN
ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGES
By JOHN HARRIS

presented by SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM
at the Royal College of Surgeons,
35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields 

Following there will be by drinks at the Museum

Since at least Tudor times there have been architectural salvages: paneling, chimney pieces, doorways, or any fixtures and fittings might be removed from an old interior to be replaced by more fashionable ones. Not surprisingly, a trade developed and architects, builders, masons and sculptors sought out these salvages. By 1820, there was a growing profession of brokers and dealers in London and a century later antique shops were commonplace throughout England.
           

In England salvages are not only native in origin - as a consequence of the French Revolution a mass of paneling and carved woodwork poured into the London auction rooms, much of it from religious desecrations. However, during the period following the First World War, hundreds of country houses in this country fell to the demolisher’s pickaxes, and this coincided with the fashion for Period Rooms in American museums. It was the age of Moving Rooms.
           

In this lecture, which celebrates the publication of his Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages (Yale University Press), John Harris will not only speak about this phenomenon, but about the hundred thousand salvages bought by William Randolph Hearst for his houses and castles in New York, California, Long Island, and St Donat’s Castle in Wales, and the duplicity of dealers such as Charles Roberson of the Knightsbridge Rooms in the invention of rooms to suit the demands of hungry museum directors.

LONDON - Reservations:  The lecture will be held at the Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.   Immediately following will be drinks at the Museum.   Tickets cost £10.00 (£5.00 to students) and can be purchased on the door (subject to availability), or booked in advance by completing the form below. Please post your booking slip to Sir John Soane's Museum, 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP.  For more information or to be added to the Museum's email mailing list please contact Bethany Kingston on 020 7440 4254. Email: bkingston@soane.org.uk

NEW YORK - Tuesday, 23 October 2007, 6:00pm  - LECTURE + BOOK SIGNING

NOBLE HOUSEHOLDS: 18TH CENTURY INVENTORIES OF GREAT ENGLISH HOUSES
by TESSA MURDOCH

presented by the ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION with co-sponsors
THE AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE ATTINGHAM SUMMER SCHOOL and
SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM FOUNDATION
at The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison)

One of the most important tools scholars use to document what objects were kept in 18th century English country and town houses are the inventories, often compiled after the owner’s death. These inventories record in astonishing detail and with great immediacy the goods and chattels accumulated, inherited, or acquired for everyday use or enjoyment. They provide tantalizing insights into the taste and lifestyle of leading grandees and the households that supported them—above stairs in the grand entertainment rooms and below in the servants’ areas. For example, kitchen utensils with French names reflect the presence of a French chef and the adoption of French cooking methods while the equipment listed for cleaning reflects the community of stewards and housekeepers. These inventories record the collecting habits of leading 18th-century patrons—furniture, porcelains, silver, and books—and provide an opportunity to compare the arrangements of the interiors of the great town and country houses of the same noble families in different generations. Dr. Tessa Murdoch will lecture about some of inventories of a few houses, including Drayton House in Northamptonshire and the houses owned by the Dukes of Marlborough and Norfolk, and illustrate how the objects they describe reflect their owners’ taste and status.
         

DR. TESSA MURDOCH  -  Dr. Murdoch (University of London) is the Deputy Keeper in the Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She is the recipient of the 2002 Getty Curatorial Grant for research on English giltwood furniture 1700–1750, and is currently completing a book on the subject. She is the editor of Boughton House: The English Versailles (1992). Her latest editing project, Noble Households: 18th Century Inventories of Great English Houses (2006) is published in memory of the architectural historian John Cornforth. She has also written numerous articles for The Magazine Antiques, The Journal of Decorative Arts, The Burlington Magazine and is a frequent lecturer in Britain and across the United States.

NEW YORK - Reservations are required.  Register online at www.royal-oak.org/lectures or call Robert Dennis at 212/480-2889, ext. 201.   Please be sure to identify that you are a supporter of Soane Foundation to get the member rate.

2007- Aug.9

Wednesday, 25 April 2007 with MOOD INIGO JONES

Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation Spring Gala, Wednesday April 25, 2007" MOOD INIGO JONES

A Gala Evening with Dinner and Dancing at the Rainbow Room in New York which included an amazing Mini-Masque performance created and orchestrated by Soane Foundation President Chippy Irvine entitled “The Architect's Apotheosis: Presenting the Life of Sir John Soane - In five minutes...”

HONORARY CHAIRS:
Sir David Manning, British Ambassador to the United States, and Lady Manning

INTERNATIONAL CHAIR:
Mrs. Deborah Brice

GALA CO-CHAIRS:
Joseph A. Field
Peter Pennoyer
Mrs. Stanley DeForest Scott
Kathleen E. Springhorn
Paul V. Wiseman

SOANE FOUNDATION HONORS

David Macaulay

Richard H. Driehaus

Our evening celebrated Sir John Soane’s dedication to architectural education by honoring two remarkable individuals who have followed in his foot steps through their outstanding contributions to architectural education today. The first Soane Foundation Honors were presented to:

David Macaulay, a hands-on educator and prolific author/illustrator, is internationally acclaimed for his best selling books and PBS series about architecture and design, including Cathedral, City, Pyramid, Castle, Mosque and The New Way Things Work. Mr. Macaulay has been the recipient of Caldecott Medals and numerous other book awards, and was named a 2006 MacArthur Fellow by the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is currently working on a book about the human body called The Way We Work to be published in the fall of 2008.

Richard H. Driehaus, philanthropist and investor extraordinaire, is the founder of Driehaus Securities and Driehaus Capital, and, as the architect of growth investing, was named to Barron’s “All Century Team” of the 25 most influential individuals in the Mutual Fund Industry in the past 100 years. Personally and through his Foundation and Charitable Trusts, he underwrites and presents an annual $100,000 Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture, restores historic landmarks, and is a benefactor to cultural, educational and social causes.

The Directors of Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation would like to recognize the following corporate leaders and supporters of this evening:

Cooper Robertson & Partners
EOS Airlines
Ike Kligerman Barkley Architects
Peter Pennoyer Architects
Taconic Builders
Withers Bergman

THE SOANE FOUNDATION
CONGRATULATES THE WINNER OF THE
TWO-ROUND TRIP TICKETS ON EOS

The Foundation would like to thank EOS Airlines as they have graciously provided two round-trip tickets for the benefit of this evening.

SEE FULL STORY

2007 - Apr 24

Tuesday, 24 April 2007 — 8:30am to 6:30pm – Hudson Valley Day Trip
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation is pleased to continue providing specialized travel and educational programs in the United States for both professionals and laypersons to explore architecture, the arts, design, and interiors. Complementing our Fall exploration of the upper Hudson Valley houses of Olana, Edgewater and Astor Courts, we will now explore two houses in the lower part of the valley – Boscobel and Kykuit.
Trip Brochure and Reservation Form

Sir John Soane is considered one of the greatest of all British architects and his idiosyncratic house-museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London attests to his innovative architectural ideas, mastery of space and light, and collecting prowess. Over his life, Sir John Soane amassed an extraordinary collection of paintings, sculpture, and architectural elements so large that it fills nearly every corner of his home. However, Regency London was home to another great architectural collection, Lewis Nockalls Cottingham’s “Museum of Medieval Art” in Waterloo Bridge Road. Cottingham’s collection, sold in 1851, was rich in specimens of Gothic and early English architecture, and included perhaps the earliest sequence of “period rooms” in any museum. In this lecture, Tim Knox, director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, will compare Soane’s surviving collection with the lost one of Cottingham, touching upon other collections formed by architects of the Regency era. He will also consider the question as to why modern visitors can still enjoy the treasury of Soane, that tormented genius of British architecture, while Cottingham’s antiquarian Elysium has passed into almost complete oblivion.

This lecture is presented in cooperation with The Royal Oak Foundation.

January 16th - Tuesday, 6pm to 8pm
LECTURE ( $20 per person / $15 Students and Seniors )

Discontented Classicism: Commerce, Character, and the Career of Sir John Soane
Speaker:  Daniel M. Abramson

Professor Abramson (B.A., Princeton University; M.A. and Ph.D., Harvard University) is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History and Director of Architectural Studies at Tufts University. He is author of "Building the Bank of England: Money, Architecture, Society, 1694-1942" and "Skyscraper Rivals: The AIG Building and the Architecture of Wall Street," in addition to numerous articles and chapters in scholarly publications.  Professor Abramson was also the recipient of the Soane Foundation’s Traveling Fellowship Award in 1997.

LOCATION:
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture
18 West 86th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, New York City
This event is presented by the Bard Graduate Center and the Yale Center for British Art.

January 9th - Tuesday, 6pm to 8pm
PRIVATE EXHIBITION TOUR & RECEPTION ( $30 per person )

James "Athenian" Stuart, 1713 - 1788, The Rediscovery of Antiquity

LOCATION:
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture
18 West 86th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, New York City

June 11, 1997 - Sir John Soane’s Imprint on the Twentieth Century: An Exploration of Soane’s Continuing Influence on Contemporary Architecture and Design. Brendan Gill, Honorary Chairman Jaquelin Robertson, Moderator. Michael Graves, Thomas Beeby, Keith Irvine, John Saladino, Panelists. A Panel of architects and designers discussing the current significance of Soane’s seminal work.

April 10, 1997 - Soane’s Hogarths: The Avid Quest of a Resolute Collector. Eugene Thaw, Honorary Chairman. Ronald Paulson, Speaker (Johns Hopkins University). To mark the occasion of Hogarth’s tercentenary, this presentation explored the attraction of Hogarth’s work to Soane and others who collected it during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

January 21, 1997 - Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and The Masonic Movement.
Christopher Monkhouse, Honorary Chairman. David Watkin, Speaker (Cambridge University). An exploration of Enlightenment thought and its connection with the Masonic movement with regard to their effect on Soane and his circle.

October 16, 1996 -The Architectural Interior: Collectors, Architects and Visionaries from Walpole to Soane. Albert Hadley, Honorary Chairman. Stephen Calloway, Speaker (Victoria & Albert Museum). An illustrated presentation showing how the architectural interior was transformed by contact with ancient civilizations during this period of intense archeological excavation.

April 24, 1996 - Private View of the Exhibition, Soane: Connoisseur and Collector. A preview of the first traveling exhibition from Sir John Soane’s Museum on view at The Frick Collection, April - July 1996. A fund-raising dinner followed the preview.

March 14, 1996 - A panel discussion exploring different aspects of the ethics of collecting with John Harris, Architectural Historian, Phyllis Lambert, Director, Centre Canadien d’Architecture, George Ortiz, Collector of Antiquities, Eugene V. Thaw, Honorary Chairman and Moderator.

April 26, 1995 - Mark Hampton, Mark Hampton, Inc.; Keith Irvine, Irvine & Fleming, Inc.; J. Carter Brown, Honorary Chairman. An analysis of Jefferson’s and Soane’s innovative contributions to the decorative arts and interior design with an emphasis on their use of space and light.

February 15, 1995 - Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor, Chair of Architectural History, University of Virginia; Damie Stillman, Chair and John W. Shirley Professor of Art History, University of Delaware; Allan Greenberg, Honorary Chairman. An examination of Soane’s and Jefferson’s attitudes toward the urban milieu and the natural landscape, and, the physical and symbolic roles their buildings played in these settings.

November 16, 1994 - Barry Bergdoll, Architectural Historian, Department of Art, Columbia University; Wendell Garrett, Senior Vice President of American Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s, and Editor-at-Large, Antiques; Douglas Lewis, Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, National Gallery of Art; Suzanne Stephens, Honorary Chair and Moderator. An exploration of the work of certain architects in Germany, France and Italy as well as in the United States and England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and how their works and writings may have contributed to the architectural development of Jefferson and Soane.

October 26, 1994 - Jaquelin T. Robertson, Partner, Cooper, Robertson & Partners; Robin Middleton, Professor, Dept. of Art History, Columbia University; Philip Johnson, Honorary Chairman; Peter Thornton, Honored Guest, Curator of Sir John Soane’s Museum. An assessment of Jefferson’s and Soane’s architectural legacies in the light of their influence on architects in the twentieth century.