John Soane is the most unclassical of all the architects of Classicism, and his home itself is the strangest of all his creations. He gradually expanded the house as he bought up neighboring properties and reworked them. The result is a crowded and bewildering labyrinth of rooms of varying dimensions and shapes, oddly placed doors, shafts between floors and natural light streaming from unseen openings in every direction, including from below. Like every enlightened English gentleman of his time, Soane was a collector of antiques and paintings, and it was to house and display them that he kept adding new structures to the house. The displays so cover the walls of the tiny rooms that you can hardly pass through without bumping an ear or a nose into a Roman marble.
