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Above: The entrance to V&A East Museum at podium level. Architects O’Donnell + Tuomey integrated benches into the façade to bring people closer to the building and welcome them in.
An 18-foot bronze woman stands outside the V&A’s newest museum, holding a cell phone. She’s wearing sneakers and jeans, looking past you toward some middle distance, unbothered. Thomas J Price’s A Place Beyond—the artist’s tallest sculpture to date—greets visitors at the V&A East Museum, which opens this Saturday in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The statue is a disarmingly casual welcome for a major national institution, and a signal of what’s inside.
More than a decade in the making, the V&A East Museum is the second of two new V&A sites in Stratford, following the V&A East Storehouse, which opened last May. Together they anchor East Bank, the cultural quarter rising from the legacy landscape of the 2012 Olympics, backed by £640 million from the Mayor of London.
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The V&A East museum has an entrance facing onto Waterfront Square in East Bank, which features an 18-foot-tall sculpture by Thomas J Price.
The building was designed by Dublin-based architecture firm O’Donnell + Tuomey, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal-winning practice behind the Photographers’ Gallery in London and the LSE Student Centre. Its five stories of grid-like, precast concrete tower over the plaza. “Precast concrete was central from the beginning, chosen for its solidity, durability and civic presence,” says the firm’s founding director John Tuomey. “The façade panels are detailed to read as stone rather than concrete, giving the building a sense of permanence and establishing a quiet dialogue with the V&A in South Kensington.”
Inside, terrazzo concrete floors extend the material palette of Olympic Park into the galleries. Two entrances replace the single ceremonial front door, and benches built into the base of the building encourage visitors to sit and stay. Tuomey wanted the exterior to communicate “a sense of invitation, a feeling of curiosity and encouragement to come in and explore. It was important that the building felt clearly public and approachable,” he says.
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View into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from a window inside the Why We Make galleries on level 2.
That openness extends to the building’s relationship with the outdoors. Many of the collections need careful light control, but O’Donnell + Tuomey wanted to make sure visitors never lost the park outside. “Carefully placed windows in landings and circulation spaces allow light in at key moments,” Tuomey says, “creating moments of pause, reflection, and social conversation.”
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Generous public circulation spaces designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey and entrance to permanent Why We Make Gallery designed by JA Projects.
The museum’s collection matches the structure’s ambition. The two free permanent galleries, together called Why We Make, hold over 500 objects spanning art, architecture, design, performance, and fashion. JA Projects designed the galleries with A Practice for Everyday Life, artist Larry Achiampong, and the V&A East Youth Collective, young people from east London’s Olympic host boroughs. Jen McLachlan, V&A East’s project director, says, from the start, the team conceived of the museum’s design, collection, and programming with young east Londoners in mind.
The curatorial approach breaks from South Kensington’s disciplinary galleries. Instead of sorting by period or material, the curators group objects across geographies and timelines—furniture by contemporary artist Yinka Ilori sits near carnival costumes by artist Keith Khan and fashion by Alexander McQueen. McLachlan describes the galleries as “spaces that resonate with young people,” comparing them to “a layered urban landscape.”
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Permanent Why We Make gallery designed by JA Projects.
The museum’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story, is the largest exhibition ever mounted on the impact of Black British music. It traces 125 years of history across eight genres, from 2 tone through jungle, trip hop, UK garage, and grime. The collection of over 200 objects includes Stormzy’s 2019 Glastonbury stab-proof vest (designed by Banksy, originally sketched on a napkin), Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, Grooverider’s first turntable, and fashion worn by Sade, Little Simz, and Dame Shirley Bassey. The V&A also acquired over 50 photographs for the show, from Dennis Morris’s early shots of Bob Marley to Laura “Hyperfrank” Brosnan’s image of Skepta’s family celebrating his 2016 Mercury Prize win.
The museum is open today and free to all. It joins a stretch of Olympic Park that now includes the theater for dance, Sadler’s Wells East, the London College of Fashion, and UCL (University College London), with BBC Music Studios still to come. East London’s cultural map looks very different than it did a decade ago, and residents and tourists alike just got another reason to pay attention.
Julia Cancilla is the social media & news editor at ELLE Decor, where she oversees the brand’s socials and covers design, pop culture, and emerging trends. She also authors the monthly ELLE Decoroscope column. Her work has appeared in Inked magazine, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, and more.