In this museum space, the objects are yours to touch
From 31 May, one of the world’s largest art and design museums is offering the public not just a rare peek behind the curtain, but a chance for visitors to poke about, see up close — and touch — historical and culturally significant pieces.
The V&A Storehouse East — a new museum-grade storage facility turned exhibition and research space in London — is a project over 10 years in the making and one that aims to reframe the traditional museum experience.
Spread across four mighty floors (though only three are accessible to the public), there are over 250,000 objects, ranging from Roman frescoes and an early 14th-century Simone Martini painting to avant-garde fashion and couture from the likes of Schiaparelli, Comme des Garçons, and Vivienne Westwood. The open access offered to visitors turns museum conventions on their head, where works on display are usually roped off, guarded, and therefore only admired from a distance.
“This is real back-of-house museum work,” said the V&A East Storehouse’s senior curator, Georgina Haseldine, standing in front of rows and rows of priceless objects — from paintings by Margaret Sarah Carpenter to 18th-century hunting swords — ahead of its public opening. “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.”
Designed by American interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the space includes a central hall reaching 20 meters high. From all directions, rows of metal shelves housing furniture, artworks, mannequins, and more stretch outwards. Here, visitors can peer up or down from the upper floors. With so much to see, it is easy to feel engulfed by the sheer volume of items in possession.
“On average, only 3% of a museum’s collection is on display at any given time,” estimated Diller Scofidio + Renfro co-founding partner Elizabeth Diller at the Storehouse’s opening. “The other 97% is hidden away in the basement or off-site in a warehouse. As museums accumulate more and more collections, the proportion of works on display is just going to diminish over time unless we build new wings to accommodate more stuff.”
For the V&A, thousands of artifacts previously relegated to deep storage are now finally seeing the light — with some works, as is the case with the awe-inspiring Altamira ceiling (a gilded softwood ceiling originating from Toledo, Spain, and dating back to the late 15th century), they are being seen for the first time in decades. Similarly, the dazzling 10-meter-high recreation of Picasso’s “Two Women Running along the Beach (The Race) (1922)” painted by Prince Alexander Sharvashidze is being shown for the first time in over 10 years. The front cloth, used by a traveling ballet company in 1924, was even signed by Picasso himself.
The result is akin to a big, artisanal IKEA (unmissable is the pleasant smell of wood, likely emanating from one of the many ancient chests of drawers — the oldest dating back to 1410) or, in the eyes of Diller, a cabinet of curiosities. “The V&A’s collection is eccentric in the first place,” she said. “Where else would you encounter suits of armor, stage cloths, biscuit tins, building fragments, puppets, thimbles, chandeliers, and motorcycles next to each other?”
Instead of alphabetizing or organizing based on strict chronology, Diller decided to “lean into the” delirium”—placing items that spanned across medium, time periods, and geographical location right next to one another. “It’s a 16th-century form of display,” she explained. “Which was more for private collections, but they also would put delirious things together.”
As expected, lifting the menagerie of items right off the shelf is prohibited — this is not actually an IKEA, after all — but touching, surprisingly, is not entirely off-limits. Visitors keen to hold a centuries-old shoe in their own hands need only take the time to log on and book a slot at the Storehouse’s on-site Research Center. There, invigilators and conservationists are on hand to teach the public how to properly handle culturally significant works.
The online booking portal has been open since 13 May, with the V&A already reportedly receiving requests from curious members of the public, ranging from avid researchers to brides-to-be looking for wedding dress inspiration. So far, the most requested item is a fuchsia 1957 Cristobal Balenciaga gown. Laid out in the Research Center, the frock’s silk taffeta looks almost iridescent up close.
Breathing near it feels inconsiderate — but Kate Parsons, director of conservation, collections care, and access at the V&A, reassured that there is climate control across the facility, keeping the Storehouse at between 16 and 25 degrees centigrade and 40-60% humidity, as per international standards, along with a variety of methods that tie down or secure items to the viewing table.
Still, is she nervous about putting these invaluable items in the hands of the public? “No. Not at all,” she told CNN. “We’ve thought very carefully about the robustness of the object.”
“These collections belong to the public. And it’s just incredible that we can enable access.”
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