Educational Media Reviews Online

Although the event reportedly attracted little attention at the time, demolition of the Bank of England building in the City of London in the 1920s is now considered by some historians to represent the single greatest architectural loss of the 20th century. But in its absence, ironically, Sir John Soane's 18th century masterwork soon inspired a revival of interest in his genius. By the 1950s, American architects looking to move beyond the austerity of modernism discovered in Soane's idiosyncratic classical references a vocabulary that would come to define the postmodern.

In visits led by distinguished architects and historians, the film documents Soane's surviving works including the Dulwich Picture Gallery outside London; the stables of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; the domed drawing room at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire; and most importantly, Soane's own extraordinary London home, which became a museum in 1818 while still serving as his residence. The tour also includes sites in Italy visited by Sir John Soane (1753-1837) as a young man: Hadrian's Villa outside Rome, and Villa Palagonia and Temple Concord in Sicily, which represent the classical sources of his style.

That Sir John Soane's influence on twentieth century American architecture has been profound, is evident in eloquent tributes -- both written and built -- by Philip Johnson, Robert A. M. Stern, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Richard Meier, Henry Cobb, and Michael Graves. The individuality of their works and the variety of their personal accounts reflects the complexity and timelessness of Soane's vision, in which, as one historian observed, "There is enough richness . . . to find meanings that no one has even thought of."

The film's director, Murray Grigor, brought to public television the series Pride of Place: Building the American Dream, and received, among his many honors, the American Institute of Architects' Citation of Excellence for his film Portrait of an Artist: The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Even in this distinguished company Sir John Soane: An English Architect, An American Legacy stands out. It is highly recommended for any library collection, and in particular, for collections focused on architecture, history, or art.