V&A East Storehouse: London
V&A East Storehouse: London’s Groundbreaking New Museum Experience
London’s cultural scene has a new icon, and it isn’t another blockbuster gallery or temporary show. The V&A East Storehouse, designed by celebrated architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has opened at Here East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and it is unlike any museum you’ve visited before. More than just a gallery, the Storehouse is a working museum store, part archive, part theatre, part Cabinet of Curiosities and a place where the public gets closer to the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum than ever before.
For locals, it’s a bold new reason to head east. For visitors from overseas, it’s set to become a must-see attraction in London, joining the ranks of the British Museum, Tate Modern, and the V&A’s original South Kensington home. And with the David Bowie Centre opening inside the Storehouse this September, fans from around the globe will soon be making pilgrimages to Stratford for a glimpse of the Starman’s personal archive.
The Architecture: Where Transparency Meets Wonder
The Storehouse occupies part of the former London 2012 Olympics Media and Broadcast Centre, now reborn as Here East, a hub of creativity and innovation. At 16,000 square metres and four levels tall, the scale alone is extraordinary: it’s bigger than 30 basketball courts, housing more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books, and 1,000 archives.
From the moment you step inside, architecture is the experience. The heart of the building is the Weston Collections Hall, a soaring chamber where walls of open storage reveal rows upon rows of treasures: fashion, sculpture, furniture, photography, music, and performance. This isn’t an exhibition arranged by curators in a neat chronological line. Instead, it feels like you’ve walked into a giant backstage, a place where the national collection lives and breathes.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, known for projects like the High Line in New York and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, describe the Storehouse as “neither warehouse nor museum, but a hybrid shared by staff and the public.” That’s exactly how it feels, a transparent working space, where conservation labs and technicians are visible, and where the boundaries between front-of-house and back-of-house have dissolved.
View of a section of Robin Hood Gardens, V&A East
The Highlights: From Picasso to Frank Lloyd Wright
The Storehouse isn’t just about volume; it’s about the sheer quality and variety of objects on display. Together, these objects create a kaleidoscopic portrait of creativity, spanning centuries, disciplines, and continents. It’s a reminder of why the V&A holds one of the world’s most important collections of art, design, and performance.
Some of the top highlights include:
The largest Picasso in the world: Le Train Bleu stage cloth, painted in 1924 for the Ballets Russes, a monumental 10-metre by 11-metre textile rarely seen since its debut.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kaufmann Office: a complete 1930s interior designed for Pittsburgh’s Kaufmann department store, shipped and reassembled in London, the only Wright interior outside the US.
The Torrijos Ceiling: a gilded and carved masterpiece from a 15th-century Spanish palace, now lost to history but alive in east London.
Robin Hood Gardens: a building section from the iconic (and controversial) east London housing estate, preserved as part of Britain’s architectural legacy.
Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt Kitchen: a pioneering 20th-century design, considered the prototype for the modern fitted kitchen.
Pop and performance treasures: Vivien Leigh’s stage costumes, PJ Harvey’s guitar, Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic cauldron model, Glastonbury Festival memorabilia, and Suffragette scarves.
View of the Weston Collections Hall, which features over 100 mini curated displays
Order an Object: A Radical First for London
One of the most exciting features of the Storehouse is its Order an Object service. For the first time, anyone, from students and researchers to curious members of the public, can request to see specific items from the collection. That means you could book an appointment to study a Cristóbal Balenciaga evening dress, a 14th-century Simone Martini painting, or even vintage band t-shirts and Roman frescoes.
Since its launch, over 1,000 objects have already been ordered, with the most popular so far, a 1954 pink silk taffeta gown by Balenciaga. For fashion lovers, design students, and cultural tourists, this service offers unprecedented access to some of the most extraordinary objects in the world, all for free.
The David Bowie Centre: Opening October 2025
If the architecture and collections weren’t enough, October brings a cultural milestone: the opening of the David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts. This dedicated space will house Bowie’s complete archive, donated by the Bowie Estate and supported by Warner Music Group and the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Fans will be able to see costumes, handwritten lyrics, set designs, instruments, and photographs, tracing Bowie’s career from Ziggy Stardust to Blackstar. For international Bowie devotees, this will be the definitive archive, a permanent home that ensures London cements its claim as the city most synonymous with Bowie’s creativity. For tourists planning their trip to London, this promises to be one of 2025’s most important cultural openings, rivalling the city’s blockbuster exhibitions and global music events.
Images: Left, Aladdin Sane Contact Sheet © Duffy Archive & © The David Bowie ArchiveTM. Right, David Bowie with artists Luther Vandross, Ava Cherry and Robin Clark during Young Americans album recording session, 1975. Photo by Corinne Schwab
The V&A East Storehouse isn’t just another museum; it’s a radical new way of experiencing culture. Londoners will relish the chance to see national treasures on their doorstep in east London, in a building that celebrates transparency and access. For overseas visitors, it offers something unique: a free cultural experience that rivals the world’s greatest museums, but feels more alive, more personal, and more immersive.
With Stratford’s East Bank also home to the new Sadler’s Wells East, BBC Music Studios (opening 2026), and London College of Fashion, the Storehouse is at the centre of London’s most ambitious cultural development in decades.
A Cultural Revolution
The V&A East Storehouse is more than a new museum; it’s a cultural revolution in east London. The architecture by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a masterpiece, designed to collapse the distance between object and observer. The collection is vast, eclectic, and surprising, bringing Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright into dialogue with Glastonbury and football shirts. And with the arrival of the David Bowie Centre, it will become one of the world’s most important destinations for music and design lovers.
For Londoners, it’s an essential new addition to the city’s cultural map.Enjoy.
V&A East Storehouse
Free entry, open daily, 10:00–18:00 (late nights Thursday & Saturday until 22:00)
Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.
vam.ac.uk
Images: courtesy of V&A East