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Min at the Soane

Sir John Soane’s Museum, London,

Min at the Soane is a project at Sir John Soane’s Museum that interrogates the origins of the sacred through architectural form. Drawing on the ancient symbolism of the arch, the work is inspired by the Egyptian god of fertility, Min, and resonates with elements of Soane’s canopies

Genres work
Themes arches forms
Typology installation
Intervention types furniture
Stages built
Places london

Work

Antonino Cardillo

Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome. […] They involved liberation from civilization’s rules and constraints. They celebrated a return to the source of being. […] Festivals were orgies of wine and sex: over all reigned the Phallus.

— Wikipedia, Dionysian Mysteries (2013)

Since the Etruscan tombs, even before appearing as a structural element in the history of architecture, the arch derived its figure from the phallus. Inspired by the Egyptian God of fertility Min, a series of seven sculptures at Sir John Soane’s Museum investigates the origin of the sacred.

The transition from the square to the circle has been a fundamental theme of architecture. Min resolves the passage from the parallelepiped to the sphere through an intersection of the two solids, identifying a monolith shaped by arched sides and hemispherical dome. The form of Min is also reminiscent of John Soane’s canopies and the London Red Telephone Box designed by Giles Gilbert Scott who, in turn, took inspiration from the Soane family tomb in Old St Pancras churchyard.

‘’, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 13 Sept. 2014

Min at the Soane
No. 12 Breakfast Room: seven sculptures in Soane’s bookcase, beside books by Ruskin
Min at the Soane
Number V of the series of Min marble monoliths with four arched sides and a dome
Sir John Soane’s Museum
John Soane, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Portico, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, 1812. Photography: Antonino Cardillo, 2014

Data

  • Time: Design (Aug 2013); Production (Aug 2014); Photography (Sep 2014 & Sep 2017); Exhibition (13 Sep – 11 Oct. 2014)
  • Place: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn, London, United Kingdom
  • Material: limestone (VII), marbles (I – III, V), onyx (IV, VI)

Credits

  • Architecture: Antonino Cardillo
  • Patron: Sir John Soane’s Museum (director: Abraham Thomas; MD of Soane Museum Enterprises: Xanthe Arvanitakis; communications assistant: Maxwell Blowfield; retail manager: Olly Perry)
  • Producer, sponsor: Daniele Ghirardi (Ghirardi Stone Contractor)
  • Collectors: Ana Araujo (II); Bank of Italy, London (IV, VI); Massimiliano Beffa (III); Antonino Cardillo (V); Daniele Ghirardi (VII); Anna Marra (I)
  • Photography, text: Antonino Cardillo
  • Translation: Antonino Cardillo, Paolo Bedetti
  • Thanks to Siobhan Henderson

Poetics

2023 – 2015

This lecture traces a decade of research aimed at reintegrating psychology, anthropology, historiography and archaeology into architecture, a discipline fragmented by modern specialisation. Of Min at the Soane, a sculpture in seven parts shown in 2014 in the Breakfast Room of Sir John Soane’s Museum, it says that it interprets the elongated arch, a constant form in Soane’s poetics, linking it to the phallic representation in the Etruscan tombs of the Banditaccia. Hidden among the volumes of a glazed bookcase, the seven stones act as talismans that invite a reconsideration of historiography: the arch was not born in Rome.

L’antropologia nell’architettura, Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, (en, it)

This lecture explores architecture as a symbolic and psychological act, where ancient archetypes and cultural opposites converge in spatial form. Min at the Soane, a sculpture conceived for an exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum, is read here through the Etruscan tombs of Cerveteri, where an elongated arch marks the men and a triangular tympanum the women: arches and tympana may have come down to us not for their usefulness, but as signs. Eroticism, later repressed in the history of civilisation, appears as a possible origin of the sacred.

Dessauer Gespräche, Dessau Institute of Architecture, Dessau, (en, it)

This interview reflects on the idea of references as acts of permanence and love, rather than intellectual quotation. Published as part of a feature on seven selected architectural offices, it explores the symbolic resonance of memory, tradition and the sacred. Through the sculpture Min for the Sir John Soane’s Museum and the gallery Crepuscular Green in Rome, it considers how references can become vessels of meaning – shards of life beyond death – when synchronised with emotional intent. Architecture is framed as a poetic testimony, resisting trivialisation and reclaiming its metaphysical depth.

Baunetzwoche, Berlin, (de, en, it)

Historiography

2015 – 2014

Cardillo’s Min sculptures, inspired by the homonymous Egyptian god of fertility, gives shape to what could be regarded as a contemporary image of a talisman; a symbolic magnet, an object imbued with magical properties.

Design Exchange, no. 12, London, August 2015, p. 109 (en, it)

The curated display […] will be installed in the Museum’s historic No.12 Breakfast Room. Space and Light features a collection of one-off pieces and never-before-seen products, all available for sale, offering visitors a rare opportunity to own unique and limited edition designs from some of the world’s most exciting designers and creatives.

Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 7 August 2014 (en, it)

Exhibitions

2023 – 2014

Museo Agostino Pepoli

Following an introduction by anthropologist Rita Cedrini, Antonino Cardillo presented his built works in the lecture ‘An integrative journey’, part of the encounter L’antropologia nell’architettura at the Museo Agostino Pepoli in Trapani. Min at the Soane appeared under the title ‘Space and Light Exhibition’.

Trapani, (en, it)

Dessau Institute of Architecture

After an introduction by Professor Johannes Kister, Cardillo interpreted seven images of his architectural works during the lecture ‘A synchronicity of cultures and civilisations’, part of the Dessauer Gespräche series at the Dessau Institute of Architecture, Bauhaus Campus. Min at the Soane illustrated the section ‘The sacred eroticism of the phallus’.

Bauhaus Campus, Dessau, (de, en, it)

Sir John Soane’s Museum

At the invitation of director Abraham Thomas, the bespoke series of seven sculptures Min were part of the exhibition Space and Light in the breakfast room at number 12 of Sir John Soane’s house-museum in London.

London, – (en, it)

Publications

2023 – 2015

Theoretical writings

  • , ‘Un percorso d’integrazione’, lecture as part of the encounter , part of the series of cultural events of the Museo Agostino Pepoli, Trapani, 26 May 2023; transcript published on , 20 Sept. 2025.
  • , ‘A synchronicity of cultures and civilisations’, lecture as part of the Dessauer Gespräche cur. Johannes Kister, Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau Institute of Architecture, 13 Nov. 2019; transcript published on , 15 April 2023.
  • , ‘’, in Kristina Herresthal, Lisa Kadel, ‘Falsche Freunde: sieben Architekten über ihre Arbeit mit Referenzen’, Baunetzwoche, no. 403, BauNetz, Berlin, 26 March 2015, p. 25; baunetz.de, 26 March 2015.

Bibliography

2026 – 2014