What do the largest Picasso painting in the world, punky Vivienne Westwood apparel, pins for securing a 17th-century ruff, and a complete Frank Lloyd Wright interior have in common? That’ll be the U.K.’s Victoria and Albert Museum, or the V&A, the world’s largest collection of design and applied and decorative arts.
In South Kensington, the palatial museum has awed visitors since 1852, and in recent decades, the institution has greatly expanded, with locations like the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, the Wedgwood Collection in Stoke-on-Trent, the ship-like V&A Dundee in Scotland, and the brand new V&A East Storehouse in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Spanning 5,000 years of human creativity through hundreds of thousands of objects requires a lot of space. Rather than hiding it all away in a dark warehouse, the new Storehouse takes over a portion of the former 2012 London Olympics Media Centre, providing a purpose-built home for more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books, and 1,000 archives from across the V&A’s diverse collections.
The best part? You can visit! Storehouse hosts workshops, screenings, performances, and pop-up displays of special collections, along with the opportunity to observe conservators at work preserving a wide range of cultural heritage objects.
Peruse more than 100 curated mini-displays throughout the building, and book in advance to get up-close and personal through the Order an Object experience. Pick any object in storage, and a member of the Collections Access team will assist you in interacting safely with everything from artworks to textiles to musical instruments.
Plan your visit on the V&A website.
V&A Object pictured is Althea McNish, “Rubra” (1961), furnishing fabric
