The V&A Is Building A Fancy New Quarter And It’s Being Unveiled This Week

Morgan Cormack • 27 June, 2017

The Victoria and Albert Museum is getting an entire new entrance, courtyard and exhibition space in the new Exhibition Road Quarter.

It’s the place that always makes it onto those ‘free things to do in London’ lists and for damn good reason. The V&A has long been a great London museum, offering us the chance to peruse art and fashion exhibitions for free.

Well it seems that housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects just doesn’t quite cut the mustard anymore. Cue the UK’s first porcelain-tiled public courtyard, a new column-free exhibition space, and a snazzy new archway entrance.

The V&A attracts an astonishing 3.4 million visitors every year and the new Exhibition Road Quarter is estimated to pull in at least half of those museum-goers. Work on the project started all the way back in 2014, but after much waiting, the new spaces are finally set to open this Friday 30th June with a free week-long festival. It’ll offer guests the chance to explore the new surroundings whilst also enjoying a mix of art, music, fashion and family-friendly activities.

Amanda Levete, the architect who won the design competition for the V&A, describes that “our first move, unlocking the potential to bring in new audiences, is to create a relationship between the museum and the street that does not exist today.”

We’re sure that with all that contemporary design, an entrance as regal as this one and a glass fronted café, guests will come in their hoards.

Stay updated with the progress of the Exhibition Road Quarter via their website or donate to the project here.

See a sneak preview of the giant whale skeleton replacing Dippy the Dinosaur at the Natural History Museum.

Tags: art, museum, new opening, South Kensington, v&a