Enfilade

From the Soane Museum:

Diverse Maniere: Piranesi, Fantasy and Excess
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 7 March — 31 May 2014

Coffee pot from Piranesi’s Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini… (1769), cast in silver from digitally modeled elements © Factum Arte.

Sir John Soane’s Museum has one of the richest holdings of graphic work by Piranesi and this exhibition continues the exploration of Soane’s interest in Piranesi. Diverse Maniere will focus upon Piranesi’s engagement with the decorative arts. The displays will consist of meticulous three dimensional reproductions of the objects, such as coffee pots, chairs, chimneypieces and antique candelabra, tripods and altars imagined by Piranesi in such publication as Diverse Maniere or Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi etc…, but never actually realised physically. Now using the latest scanning and 3-dimensional printing technologies Factum Arte has realised Piranesi’s vision as a designer. Bronze Tripods, porphyry altars and marble candelabra will embellish the rooms of No 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, whilst in the Soane Gallery a display of Piranesi’s related etchings and explication of Factum Arte’s work will accompany the show. Surely, Sir John Soane, with his love of new technologies, his collections of plaster ‘reproductions’ after the antique, and his fascination with Piranesi’s boundless imagination would find this a particularly appropriate exhibition.

As part of our programme of events, three panel discussions, involving architects, designers, artists and academics, will look at how different disciplines approach these issues and what they might tell us about architectural and design practice in the past and how it has evolved today. All talks will begin at 6pm and take place at the Royal College of Surgeons, WC2A 3PE. Early bird ticket offer: purchase tickets for all three talks for £40. Individual lecture tickets, £15. Click here to find out more or to purchase tickets.

Visualising Design Ideas, 10 March 2014
Speakers: Michele de Lucchi, Ross Lovegrove and Adam Lowe

Using Objects as Evidence of Themselves, 18 March 2014
Speakers: Jerry Brotton, Lisa Jardine and Grayson Perry

Casts, Copies & the Dissemination of Design Ideas, 19 May 2014
Speakers: Adriano Aymonino and Sam Jacob