The Museum Nazi

D & I went to the Soane Museum today. Sir John Soane was a famous British architect who designed among other things The Bank of England Building. I am not a huge fan of architecture but D is and it was fairly interesting. We went to lunch afterward and I am a fan of lunch.

Sir John's museum is in his old house, actually three houses. As his collection grew, he bought the neighboring homes joining them and making one huge building, albeit a little disjointed. Although there are some interesting art pieces, the more interesting pieces were the bits and pieces of old buildings he "acquired". He "acquired" pieces from the Roman Forum, the Coliseum, ancient buildings in Greece that were in disrepair. He admits choosing the colors of the walls of his drawing rooms from a piece of a fresco that he chipped off one of the ruins in Pompeii. It seems to me that if more people "acquired" things in this same manner, there would hardly be anything left of these landmarks for the rest of the world to admire. To be fair, a good portion of his collection he purchased and he was a shrewd businessman. He obtained the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus of Seti I when the British Museum refused to pay £2000 for it. This sarcophagus was a remarkable example of the kind of workmanship done at the time, 1250 BC, although it has suffered because of its uncontrolled exposure to the British climate.

There was also a model of the mausoleum he designed and built for his family.This building later inspired another designer, who designed something I see every day in London - the red telephone boxes that have become so iconic.

However, the most fascinating part of the day for me came before we even entered the museum. To be truthful, I had never heard of Sir John before D mentioned she would like to check out this museum but I guess among architect buffs, especially in Europe, he is well known. They often get very large crowds and they have set up a strange little procedure for managing the crowds. When we arrived, there was no line and we walked up toward the door through an iron fence. I noticed a sign on the fence that said something to the effect, 'don't go up the door, wait outside of the fence to be acknowledged'. We looked around and we weren't sure if this was a sign meant for the weekends, and we stood there for a minute puzzled. We were still kind of looking around, when the door opened and a man gestured for us to come in the doorway. We went inside and he told us (1) we had to turn off our cell phones, and he had to watch us do it to make sure they were off (2) no photos, which was not unusual (3) we had to sign a ledger with our name and address and (4) we could bring our purses in but we could not let them hang freely from our shoulders to the side, we needed to hold them in front of our bodies the entire time so they would not brush against any items. He demonstrated the correct purse-holding position and then made us show him that we understood by repeating the procedure.

While our museum visiting training session was going on, another pair of visitors tried to walk up to the door without waiting at the designated spot by the iron fence. Our museum rules dictator rushed to the front door, stopped them by putting up his hand and told them to go back to the sidewalk. The confused couple didn't quite understand what he wanted so they went down the front steps but didn't go any further. He waved them back, they still didn't understand so he went out to the front walk, took them by the arm and escorted them to the anointed area. He came back inside to complete our orientation. After we finished, we started to walk inside and I thought I would take off my coat and carry it. "No!" the museum commandant whispered loudly. I couldn't carry my coat because I might accidentally hit something with the coat. If I wanted to take it off, I needed to decide now and put it on the one of the hooks at the entryway. Yikes, this guy was wound way too tight but I did as I was told. Frankly, I was too afraid not to.

I have been to many, many, many museums. Most of them have the same kind of rules, don't touch, no cell phones, no photos, etc. This went above and beyond. It reminded me very much of the Seinfeld episode "The Soup Nazi", where the proprietor of a soup restaurant would not serve you if you didn't follow a very precise ordering and paying routine. This was the same thing. I felt at any minute our museum nazi was going to kick us out on our ears (or other body parts) and yell "No, No Museum for You!". But he didn't. Apparently he hadn't heard of our near disaster at Kensington Palace. Whew!!