John Soane Museum, LondonMartin walked into the grand square of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a little wet after his brisk walk from Trafalgar Square at the tail end of a rainstorm. He shook out his umbrella, grateful for both its protection from the weather but also for keeping his fellow Londoners from walking too close. The busy city was his home, but he preferred the quiet solitude of his office and control over his personal space.
He stopped in front of a terraced house with high, arched windows, its white facade enhanced by partial columns in the Grecian style. Statues on the third level balcony looked out over the square with contempt for modernity, as if they could see back to when the painter JMW Turner came to call on the architect Sir John Soane.
But Martin was not here for the past.
