No more red ropes: At this museum you can actually touch all the art
The V&A Storehouse East is set to open in London where visitors can see what museums keep hidden out of sight and even get a chance to handle the items.
Imagine mixing an IKEA with a museum and you can get an idea of what the experience at the V&A East Storehouse in London will be like when it opens on 31 May. The new exhibition and research center will feature four floors containing over 250,000 eclectic objects from Roman frescos to avant-garde fashion and pretty much everything in between.
The project, which has been ten years in the making, will give visitors access to items that are normally stowed away in a museum basement or warehouse, or if on display can only be appreciated from a distance. They will be able to get up close and personal with these priceless objects.
“We want visitors to learn what a collection is, how we store it… How colleagues work across the museum, from conservators to the technical service team,” explained the V&A East Storehouse’s senior curator Georgina Haseldine to CNN. “This is real back-of-house museum work,” she added.
V&A Storehouse East: A museum where you can actually touch all the art
The V&A East Storehouse is located in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in northeast London. The “working museum” is a museum-grade storage facility that has been turned into an exhibition and research space. The public has access to three of its four floors, all of which are filled with metal shelves, the kind that you’d find in a warehouse, stacked with objects.
V&A East Storehouse opens on 31 MayV&A East Storehouse opens in one month. A new museum experience giving you access to over half a million creative works from our collection opens in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Saturday 31 May. The first of two new V&A East sites, the V&A East Storehouse invites you to step inside and discover everything from streetwear to sculpture. Get closer to the collection on your own terms with Order an Object — a world-first service that lets you book any stored object to view up close from the V&A East Storehouse. Explore over 1,500 objects displayed across 100+ mini displays across three themes: Collecting Stories, Sourcebook for Design and The Working Museum. Experience new acquisitions and work by creative icons — from Zaha Hadid and Hew Locke to Imane Ayissi, Najla El Zein and Rahemur Rahman. And witness live performances, creative encounters and late night openings, including our first onsite event back2back Archival Bodies with Playbody Find out more - vam.ac.uk/articles/about-va-east-storehouse
Publicada por Victoria and Albert Museum en Miércoles, 30 de abril de 2025
Within the V&A you’ll find encounter an eccentric collection including “suits of armors, stage cloths, biscuit tins, building fragments, puppets, thimbles, chandeliers, [and] motorcycles,” said Elizabeth Diller, co-founding partner Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the studio that designed the exhibition space. Some of these works haven’t seen the light of day in decades.
While you cannot just go around picking things up off the shelves, surprisingly if you actually want to touch one of the items, you can. However, you’ll have to book an appointment with the V&A East Storehouse’s Research Center at the facility.
“These collections belong to the public,” said Kate Parsons, director of conservation. “And it’s just incredible that we can enable access.”
The process is simple, just log on and find an available slot to book, the portal has been up and running since 13 May. Conservationists and investigators will be able to teach members of the public how to properly handle the objects that are part of a museum’s exhibition that would normally off limits.
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