Quo Vadis — Karl Marx's Former Home
Quo Vadis at 28 Dean Street in Soho, London, is a historic restaurant where communist philosopher Karl Marx lived in poverty while writing Das Kapital in the 1850s. Built around 1734, the four-storey Georgian house was converted into a restaurant in 1926 by Peppino Leoni. In 1997, artist Rick Buckley added a plaster cast of his nose to the wall to protest CCTV surveillance.
London · from the walk “Canvas & Cobblestones” · audio ~4 min · Generated
26-29 Dean Street, London W1D 3LL
- Carpenter John Nolloth built the Georgian townhouses at 26 to 29 Dean Street around 1734.
- Karl Marx lived on the top floor of 28 Dean Street after moving to London in 1849.
- Italian restaurateur Peppino Leoni purchased 27 Dean Street in 1926 with an £800 bank loan.
- Marco Pierre White and artist Damien Hirst bought the Quo Vadis restaurant together in 1996.
- Artist Rick Buckley attached a plaster cast of his nose to Quo Vadis in 1997.
Why is a plaster nose attached to the exterior wall of Quo Vadis in Soho?
Look up at the building in front of you... twenty-six to twenty-nine Dean Street. Today it's Quo Vadis, one of Soho's most celebrated restaurants. But behind those elegant stained-glass windows and that polished Georgian façade lies a story of Extreme irony... and art in the most unexpected places.......... These buildings were constructed around seventeen thirty-four by a carpenter named John Nolloth. A sculptor, Joseph Nollekens, was born in the house at number twenty-nine in seventeen thirty-seven. So art has literally been part of this address since the beginning.......... But the building's most famous resident was no artist. Karl Marx settled in London in eighteen forty-nine and is commemorated with a blue plaque at twenty-eight Dean Street, where he worked on the first volume of Das Kapital. His family occupied the top floor of this four-storeyed Georgian house. And the conditions were grim. Marx was closely followed by Prussian spies who sent reports back to Berlin. One wrote... "Marx lives in one of the cheapest quarters in London." He wrote to Engels that for ten days the family had lived on nothing but bread and potatoes. Marx himself claimed he rarely went out because his clothes were in pawn.......... Yet amid this poverty... art flourished. Jenny and Karl would organize Shakespeare plays in the front parlour, and Marx read Dante, Balzac, Cervantes, and Sir Walter Scott to the children.......... Now here's where the story takes its most delicious turn. The restaurant was founded in nineteen twenty-six by Peppino LeOni, an Italian who originally opened in just number twenty-seven, purchasing the property with a bank loan for eight hundred pounds. He named it after seeing a billboard in Leicester Square advertising a film. Quo Vadis... Latin for "Where are you going?" The answer for this building? From communist poverty... to fine dining.......... And the art connections kept coming! In nineteen ninety-six, the restaurant was bought by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White and the artist Damien Hirst, who filled the space with his paintings. The pair later had a spectacular public falling out, after which White Replaced Hirst's paintings with some of his own!......... Now, before you walk away... look carefully at the front-right of the building. There's a curious sight... a human nose, protruding from the wall. In nineteen ninety-seven, artist Rick Buckley undertook a guerrilla art project, gluing plaster casts of his Own nose onto buildings across London to protest the spread of Cctv surveillance. Legend has it that if you find all seven surviving noses scattered around Soho, you will become fabulously wealthy. So... can you spot the Quo Vadis nose?......... From a communist philosopher who couldn't afford trousers... to diamond-skulled artists and secret noses on the wall. This is Dean Street. And in Soho, art is Never just what hangs in a gallery.