Sir John Soane’s Museum, 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn, London, –
The 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 resonates with elements of Soane’s canopies
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.
‘Space and Light’, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 13 Sept. 2014.
John Soane, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Portico, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, 1812. Photography: Antonino Cardillo, 2014
Antonino Cardillo
2019 – 2015
Antonino Cardillo
What we know about the things of architecture is derived from the endless manipulations and prejudices of the millennia. Fragments of content are often encountered that suggest that eroticism, then repressed during the history of civilisation, may have been a possible origin of the sacred.
Dessauer Gespräche, Dessau Institute of Architecture, 13 November 2019. (en, it)
Ana Araujo
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)
Antonino Cardillo (interview)
Past year I designed seven sculptures for the Sir John Soane’s Museum of London. Min investigates the origin of the sacred. There I conveyed diverse references synchronised in a single shard of mineral stone. Min is about permanence of life.
Baunetzwoche, no. 403, BauNetz, Berlin, March 2015, p. 25. (de, en, it)
Maxwell Blowfield
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)
2025 – 2014
C.G. Jung-Institut, Zurich, .
Antonino Cardillo will present the seminar ‘Depth Architecture—The Aesthetic Nature of the Psyche’ as part of the autumn 2025 Analytical Psychology Training Program curated by Julia Budai at the Carl Gustav Jung Institute of Zurich.
Museo Pepoli, Trapani, .
After an introduction by the anthropologist Rita Cedrini, Cardillo presents his constructed projects during the conference ‘Anthropology in Architecture’, part of the cultural events series of the Agostino Pepoli Regional Museum in Trapani.
DIA, Bauhaus Campus, Dessau, .
After an introduction by Professor Johannes Kister, Cardillo interprets seven images of his architectural works during the conference ‘A Synchronicity of Cultures and Civilisations’, part of the Dessau Talks series at the Dessau Institute of Architecture, Bauhaus Campus.
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, – .
At the invitation of director Abraham Thomas, the bespoken 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.
2019 – 2014