A New Era For Museums With The V&A East Storehouse
Photo: The Princess of Wales tours the V&A East Storehouse, engaging with curators and discovering its groundbreaking approach to showcasing over half a million creative treasures in London’s East Bank.
Experience East London’s Cultural Beacon Redefining Art Accessibility
The V&A East Storehouse, spanning 16,000 square meters, opens in London’s East Bank, offering unprecedented public access to 500,000 creative works through innovative displays, world-class architecture, and a dynamic visitor experience.
It has been some ten years in the making but the wraps have now finally come off what is the newest visitor attraction in London. The keenly-awaited V&A East Storehouse, which has just officially opened, is the size of 30 basketball courts and houses all-manner of fascinating and eclectic items.
Designed by world renowned architects Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, it opens as part of “East Bank”, the new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
A “ground-breaking” new museum experience spanning four levels and 16,000square metres – it is indeed bigger than 30 basketball courts – the V&A East Storehouse takes over a large section of the former London 2012 Olympics Media and Broadcast Centre.
It doesn’t end there because, opening on the same site in 13 September, is the free-to-access David Bowie Centre, new home of David Bowie’s Archive, a real treat for the rock icon’s fans and expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to this sometimes overlooked part of the British capital.
The new V&A East Storehouse itself a new purpose-built home for no less than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. A “world-first” in size, scale and ambition, the site immerses visitors in over half a million works spanning every creative discipline from fashion to theatre, streetwear to sculpture, design icons to pop pioneers.
Described as a “busy and dynamic working museum store with an extensive self-guided experience,” visitors will have the chance to get up-close to national collections “on a scale and in ways not possible before.”
Tim Reeve, Deputy Director and COO, V&A, who developed the concept, told this site: “V&A East Storehouse is a completely new cultural experience, transforming how people can access their national collections on a scale unimaginable until now.
“From conservation and how we care for our collections and cultural heritage around the world, to the artistry of our museum technicians and new research – there’s so much to discover.
“I hope visitors enjoy finding their creative inspiration and immersing themselves in the full theatre and wonder of the V&A as a dynamic working museum,” Tim adds.
Through a radical new ‘order an object’ service, the public can now also book to access any object at the museum for free, seven-days-a-week.
The collection houses everything from mid-century furniture to ancient Egyptian shoes and Roman frescoes to an early 14th century Simone Martini painting and Leigh Bowery costumes.
There’s also Althea McNish fabrics, vintage band t-shirts and performance posters, and avant-garde fashion and couture from Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Vivienne Westwood.
“There’s something for everyone to explore,” said a spokesman.
Over 250 appointments have already been booked to see over 1,000 objects from 14th century and contemporary ceramics to a 17th century carpet from Iran, 1930s wedding dresses and Julia Margaret Cameron photographs.
So far, the most popular item ordered is a 1954 pink silk taffeta evening dress by Cristóbal Balenciaga.
Further comment comes from Elizabeth Diller, of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the firm that designed the architecture for the museum, who said: “To celebrate the heterogeneity of the V&A’s collection of collections—spanning a broad variety of mediums, scales, and historical periods—visitors will experience a sense of being immersed in a vast cabinet of curiosities.
“The Collections Hall invites visitors to explore pre-curated works surrounding them, not according to conventional curatorial logics or standard storage taxonomies, but guided instead by their own curiosity.”
She added, “It has been a joy to work with the V&A’s curators and conservators in creating this new kind of institution: neither warehouse nor museum, but rather a hybrid shared by staff and the public with expanded opportunities for access and exchange.”
UK Museums Minister Sir Chris Bryant is impressed, saying,: “It’s great to see the V&A innovating in this way – V&A East Storehouse makes it possible for everyone to delve into a massive treasure trove of art, design and performance history in ways never seen before.”
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan agrees, noting, “V&A East Storehouse is a brand-new, ground breaking museum experience in East Bank, London’s new educational and cultural district, that will revolutionise access to the world’s leading collection of art, design and performance.”
He said he was “proud to be supporting this landmark project, which will allow Londoners and visitors to go behind the scenes for the first time ever and explore some incredible treasures, from Roman artefacts and modern-day music archives to the largest Picasso work in the world, all for free. It’s the next building to open at East Bank and marks a hugely significant moment in our work to create the most ambitious cultural development in decades, helping us to ensure London stays the creative capital of the world.”
From the moment they emerge into the central Weston Collections Hall, visitors are met with stunning vistas across all levels, surrounded by a cross-section of the V&A’s collections.
Spanning ancient Buddhist sculpture to PJ Harvey’s guitar, paintings by Angelica Kauffman’s circle, costumes worn by Vivien Leigh, works by Sir Frank Bowling and Hew Locke, items from the Glastonbury Music Festival, Suffragette scarves, vintage football shirts, Thomas Heatherwick’s model for the London 2012 Olympic Cauldron and road signs designed by Margaret Calvert, visitors can take their own path through over 100 mini curated displays hacked into the ends and sides of the storage racking.
Six large-scale objects anchor the space, on display for the first time in decades.
Highlights include the 1930s Kaufmann Office, the only complete Frank Lloyd Wright interior outside of the US, an exquisite 15th century carved and gilded wooden ceiling from the now lost Torrijos Palace in Spain, and a full-scale 20th century Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.
Also on show is a building section from Robin Hood Gardens, a former residential estate in east London, the 17th century Agra Colonnade, an extraordinary example of Mughal architecture from the bathhouse at the fort of Agra, and the largest Picasso work in the world – a monumental Ballets Russes Le Train Bleu theatre stage cloth.
At 10 metres high and 11 metres wide, the Picasso-signed stage cloth has been rarely seen since its debut in 1924. It is on display in the new David and Molly Lowell Borthwick Gallery, built to show the V&A’s striking collection of largescale textiles and theatre stage cloths on rotation.
V&A East Storehouse is the first of V&A East’s two new cultural destinations to open in east London. The second, V&A East Museum, is scheduled to open in spring 2026, and celebrates making and creativity’s power to bring change. Created with young people and rooted in east London’s heritage, V&A East Museum spotlights the people, ideas and creativity shaping global culture right now.
The new attraction is the latest development in what many now see as London’s most vibrant area. Formerly a rundown waste ground Stratford has been totally transformed in recent years with swish shopping malls, state-of-the-art sporting facilities and new green space.
There also top hotels (an important feature if hopes of fostering interest in stopovers are to be realised), collectively known as Hyatt Hotels London Stratford and, individually as Hyatt House London Stratford and Hyatt Regency London Stratford. Their presence is seen as vitally important for local businesses who want tourists to the new V&A attraction to use the area as an overnight base for visits to the capital.
The former offers 92 studios and 35 one-bedroom suites – offering apartment-style living with all the perks of a world-class hotel, all suites feature fully equipped kitchens, free wi-fi and stylish living and working spaces. At Hyatt Regency London Stratford guests can benefit from the property’s 225 luxury appointed guestrooms and 10 stunning suites.
The V&A East Storehouse is but the latest in a long stream of exciting new projects that have created tens of thousands of new jobs and restored the area beyond all recognition.
