Workshop for Potential Design’s latest show at London’s Soane Museum

The city of London is all-aglow this week with the excitement of the annual London Design Festival. There’s so much to see, but one of our favorite exhibitions thus far is an intimate pop-up called Pieces. Inspired by the notion of fragments, the show presents work from five young, London-based talents, curated by the always thought-provoking Workshop for Potential Design.

Pieces is set in the breakfast room of the house-museum of Neoclassical architect and antiquities collector Sir John Soane. For those unfamiliar with the Soane Museum, sited in central London’s Holborn area, it’s a material culture playground filled with a mélange of sculptures, architectural fragments, ancient artifacts, old books, furnishings, and on and on, all accumulated by one of the originators of the very concept of a museum. Like all things born in the early 19^th century, the interior is rather busy, but that just means there’s a ton to see and examine.

What a rich backdrop to view such quiet yet absorbing object studies, created by engaging designers like Study O Portable, Gemma Holt, Sam Jacob, Peter Marigold, and Paul Elliman in direct response to various details found in the museum—many fragments from ancient Rome and Greece—and a calming experience that’s just right way to kick off the frenzy of the Festival. 

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    Wava Carpenter

    After studying Design History, Wava has worn many hats in support of design culture: teaching design studies, curating exhibitions, overseeing commissions, organizing talks, writing articles—all of which informs her work now as Pamono’s Editor-in-Chief.