21 March/22 March 2020 ★ FTWeekend 11
G-Plan furniture. Theexhibits show
that trends are circular and that historic
lives can be familiar. For example, cur-
rent environmental concerns mean we
are using ecologically friendly cleaners,
such as herbs, also used in the 18th and
19thcenturies.
One notable object is a 1759 letter
from a man who had recently moved to
London from the Midlands, complain-
ing about how the city is expensive and
dirty and that he misses his mother’s
cooking — sentiments familiar to any-
onewhohasmovedtothecapital.
“I think everybody has got something
to say about their experience of home,
be that positive or negative,” Solicari
says. “At the heart of our vision is to
engagepeoplewithwhathomemeansto
them. It’s something we want our visi-
torstodefine.”The Museum of the Home is expected to
reopen on September 19;museumofthe-
home.org.uk/(Above) A 1965
living room, one
of the ‘Rooms
Through Time’
at the Museum
of the Home;
(right) a
drawing room
from the 1830s
Chris Ridley/Geffrye Museumviewed about domestic details such as
what plants they have and who does the
housework. These individual experi-
ences will be displayed throughout the
museum. There will be greater consid-
eration of social and cultural differ-
ences, as well as programmes ouchingt
on homelessness, mental health and the
role of women in the home.
To include as many perspectives as
possible, the curators use what they
call a forum research model, in which
they collaborate withpeople in the
Hackney community and ask for
opinionsthrough social media. The
outreach work includes a faith and
culture forum, a group of local resi-
dents advising the museum on related
issues, which hasmade a film about
how people curate shelves, mantel-
pieces and windowsills as microcosms
of their lives.
Through exhibitions with personal
stories at their core, Solicari hopes that
every visitor — not just the British mid-
he brief for the museum’s physicalT
refurbishment was simply to create
more space. Architecture firm Wright
& Wright have extended the building
to provide a new entrance, café and
two events spaces. Their focus wasalso on making the most of the exist-
ing alms buildings.“We realised that
you were only seeing a third of it”,
says lare Wright, co-founder ofC
Wright & Wright.
They set about lowering the floor of
the basements and renovating the
attics, removing dated plasterboard to
reveal the original roof timbers (it now
looks like “an upside-down boat”, says
Wright) and copper coal chutes and
laundry hatches beneath the chapel. I“
hope that for people who already know
it, it will be like going through the back
ofthewardrobe,”Wrightadds.
But ld buildingso have their draw-
backs. When it was first converted to a
museum in the early 20th century,its
lower ground floor was knocked
through “in the worst possible area”,
leaving it structurally unsound,
according to Wright.
Access to the gardens — which will
also be renovated as though they are
rooms, reflecting different periods,
with ccess to the herb garden froma
the new wing — was via an old and no
longer suitablestaircase. Wright vis-
ited with young children and they alltripped, she says. “It was quite awk-
ward for them.”
Although charming, Solicariadmits
that “it’s been a really challenging envi-
ronment” to curate. “There are win-
dows and doors all over the place, in
unexpected places, so you’re not work-
ing with a blank canvas”. B ut she also
says it is fitting to have a museum of
domesticlifeinwhatwasonceahometo
many people, designed on a human
scale,despiteitsarchitecturalquirks.
In addition to the sequence of histori-
cal interiors there will be a “room of
now”, which will be updatedevery 18
months in partnership with artist,an
designer or architect. The first collabo-
ration is yet to be announced.“Our idea
of how we’re living right now is difficult
to get without that benefit of hindsight,”
she says. “It’s something that we need to
beconstantlyinterrogating.”
The most up-to-date-looking period
room is, paradoxically, the 1960s dis-
playwithitsnowcovetablemid-centuryHouse Home
Museum director Sonia Solicari’s
favourite object in the collection is
this plastic Cass Bar cassette holder,
by Crown Merton Ltd, c 1970.
“We’ve got a wonderful personal
story from Paul Membrey, the man
who owned it. It was given to him
by his girlfriend Behnaz, who then
became his wife. It’s an ordinary
story ut we’ve been able to tell sob
many further stories from it: the
idea of taste,selection, how long
you keep something after the
technology’s obsolete. And the
movement of technology, how that
influences our experience of home.
So tapes v YouTube or any other
meansfor generating music and
entertainment in your space. I just
love that. I love that object.”Remember this?
When the Museum of the Home
reopens it will reveal a new display
of Domestic Gamechangers,
everyday objects from the past 400
years that have had a radical effect
on how we live. These include the
television, which moved leisure
indoors, and Ikea’sBilly bookcase,
which revolutionised the furniture
market. It also includes items as
mundane as a thermostat.
“The ability to adjust the heat
level in your house was a
phenomenal change,” says museum
director Sonia Solicari. “Suddenly
the teenage bedroom could be
inhabited comfortably and people
could spend time on their own. It
has fundamentally shifted that idea
of togetherness versus individual
experience in the domestic space.”Gamechangers
dle class — will now be able to relate to
something there.“Even if [what is dis-
played] isn’t your lived experience you
can immediately say, that’s not how I
live. And then you’re engaging with the
story,”shesays.‘There are windows and
doors all over the place,
in unexpected places,so you’re not working
with a blank canvas’MARCH 21 2020 Section:Weekend Time: 18/3/2020- 18:32 User:rosalind.sykes Page Name:RES11, Part,Page,Edition:RES, 11, 1