Even before it was confirmed that the exhibition was happening we thought it was a good idea to brush up our language skills if we were going to be dealing with lots of Italians.

Our trusty textbook

To give us that added incentive after class we would pop into Gordon’s Wine bar on Villiers St to sample their wide selection of Italian reds. This approach worked for us because we managed to get through both beginners and intermediate courses and of course a lot of red wine!

The place to be on a Monday night

 Salute! 

At the beginning of September 2008 we embarked on a courier trip to Vicenza, the home of Palladio, to install the major exhibition Palladio 500.

Let us introduce ourselves -

I’m Lisa Nash, the Conservator for the RIBA British Architectural Library. I look after the diverse objects within the collections including drawings, models, photographs, books and archives, to name a few. My role in the Palladio 500 exhibition is to conserve the drawings, oversee the mounting, framing and co-ordinate the packing for the objects to go overseas.

Lisa analysing iron gall ink deterioration under the microscope

My name is Catriona Cornelius. I’m Curatorial Assistant at the RIBA British Architectural Library Drawings and Archives Collection. My job involves administering loans from the collections, helping to deliver the photography orders, answering enquiries as well as manning the Reading Room desk. I am the administrator for the Palladio exhibition and have to co-ordinate with the various institutions involved to ensure the smooth running of the works leaving the RIBA and arriving at venue.

Cat checking out details on the Palladio transparencies

Our work on the Palladio project started a long time ago, not quite in a galaxy far away, but Vicenza. In 2006 the Centro Internazionale di Studi D’Architettura Andrea Palladio (or CISA for short) teamed up with the Royal Academy in London to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Palladio’s birth. They decided to put on a grand exhibition, and, as the RIBA Library has the overwhelming majority of Palladio’s drawings in its collection, we were involved at an early stage.

We normally ask for 1-2 years notice for very large loans from the collections as we have to schedule in the huge amount of work that goes into the preparation of the drawings to be exhibited. The number of objects that was actually requested kept fluctuating, right until a final request was made in December 2007. We are lending 58 drawings, 3 books and a coin to the exhibition, making for a whole lot of conservation, framing and packing!

This is our saga…

Preparing the objects!

Drawing in the process of float mounting

Ahhh the Gallery object – the last drawing to be prepared.

This is an image of a float mounting procedure. Here Japanese hinges are adhered to the verso of the image so that the object can be attached to a support paper before it is mounted.

This drawing had been held hostage in our Architecture Gallery (at the V&A) drawers for a long time as the drawers are made out of heavy corian and immovable glass with security Perspex blocks (pig’s nose fixings Lisa tells me). It took about three hours, two burly technicians and a lot of deliberating to get this out and into the conservation studio.

Glass retention system, Willis Faber Dumas building