Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The V&A is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free.

The V&A covers 12.5 acres (5.1 ha) and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient history to the present day, fro...Read more

The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The V&A is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free.

The V&A covers 12.5 acres (5.1 ha) and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient history to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. However, the art of antiquity in most areas is not collected. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

The museum owns the world's largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world.

Since 2001 the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme. The new European galleries for the 17th century and the 18th century were opened on 9 December 2015. These restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815. The Young V&A in east London is a branch of the museum, and a new branch in London – V&A East – is being planned. The first V&A museum outside London, V&A Dundee opened on 15 September 2018.

Foundation  Henry Cole, the museum's first director Frieze detail from internal courtyard showing Queen Victoria in front of the 1851 Great Exhibition

The Victoria and Albert Museum has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851. Henry Cole was the museum's first director, he was also involved in the planning. Initially the V&A was known as the Museum of Manufactures. [1] The first opening to the general public was in May 1852 at Marlborough House. By September the collection had been transferred to Somerset House. At this stage, the collections covered both applied art and science.[2] Several of the exhibits from the opening Exhibition were purchased by the museum to form the kernel of the V&A collection.[3]

By February 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site[4] and the museum was renamed South Kensington Museum. In 1855 the German architect Gottfried Semper, at the request of Cole, produced a design for the museum, but it was rejected by the Board of Trade as too expensive.[5] The current site was occupied by Brompton Park House, which was extended in 1857 to include the first refreshment rooms. The V&A was the first museum in the world to provide researchers and guests a catering service.[6]

The official opening by Queen Victoria was on 20 June 1857.[7] In the following year, late-night openings were introduced, made possible by the use of gas lighting. In the words of museum director Cole gas lighting was introduced "to ascertain practically what hours are most convenient to the working classes".[8] To raise interest for the museum among the target audience, the museum exhibited its collections on both applied art and science. The museum aimed to provide educational resources and thus boost the productive industry.[2]

In these early years the practical use of the collection was very much emphasised as opposed to that of "High Art" at the National Gallery and scholarship at the British Museum.[9] George Wallis (1811–1891), the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection, passionately promoted the idea of wide art education through the museum collections. This led to the transfer to the museum of the School of Design that had been founded in 1837 at Somerset House; after the transfer, it was referred to as the Art School or Art Training School, later to become the Royal College of Art which finally achieved full independence in 1949. From the 1860s to the 1880s the scientific collections had been moved from the main museum site to various improvised galleries to the west of Exhibition Road.[2] In 1893 the "Science Museum" had effectively come into existence when a separate director was appointed.[10]

 Old Houses on Site of Victoria and Albert Museum, 1899 by Philip Norman

Queen Victoria returned to lay the foundation stone of the Aston Webb building (to the left of the main entrance) on 17 May 1899.[11] It was during this ceremony that the change of name from 'South Kensington Museum' to 'Victoria and Albert Museum' was made public. Queen Victoria's address during the ceremony, as recorded in The London Gazette, ended: "I trust that it will remain for ages a Monument of discerning Liberality and a Source of Refinement and Progress."[12]

The exhibition which the museum organised to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 renaming, A Grand Design, first toured in North America from 1997 (Baltimore Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), returning to London in 1999.[13] To accompany and support the exhibition, the museum published a book, Grand Design, which it has made available for reading online on its website.[14]

1900–1950

The opening ceremony for the Aston Webb building by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra took place on 26 June 1909.[15] In 1914 the construction commenced of the Science Museum, signaling the final split of the science and art collections.[16]

In 1939 on the outbreak of the Second World War, most of the collection was sent to a quarry in Wiltshire, to Montacute House in Somerset, or to a tunnel near Aldwych tube station, with larger items remaining in situ, sand-bagged and bricked in.[17] Between 1941 and 1944 some galleries were used as a school for children evacuated from Gibraltar.[18] The South Court became a canteen, first for the Royal Air Force and later for Bomb Damage Repair Squads.[18]

Before the return of the collections after the war, the Britain Can Make It exhibition was held between September and November 1946,[19] attracting nearly a million-and-a-half visitors.[20] This was organised by the Council of Industrial Design, established by the British government in 1944 "to promote by all practicable means the improvement of design in the products of British industry".[20] The success of this exhibition led to the planning of the Festival of Britain to be held in 1951. By 1948 most of the collections had been returned to the museum.

Since 1950  In 2000, an 11-metre high, blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly was installed as a focal point in the rotunda at the V&A's main entrance

In July 1973 as part of its outreach programme to young people, the V&A became the first museum in Britain to present a rock concert. The V&A presented a combined concert/lecture by the British progressive folk-rock band Gryphon, who explored the lineage of medieval music and instrumentation and related how those contributed to contemporary music 500 years later. This innovative approach to bringing young people to museums was a hallmark of the directorship of Sir Roy Strong and was subsequently emulated by some other British museums.

In the 1980s Strong renamed the museum as "The Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of Art and Design". Strong's successor Elizabeth Esteve-Coll oversaw a turbulent period for the institution in which the museum's curatorial departments were re-structured, leading to public criticism from some staff. Esteve-Coll's attempts to make the V&A more accessible included a criticised marketing campaign emphasising the café over the collection.

In 2001 the museum embarked on a major £150m renovation programme, called the "FuturePlan".[21][22] The plan involves redesigning all the galleries and public facilities in the museum that have yet to be remodelled. This is to ensure that the exhibits are better displayed, more information is available, access for visitors is improved, and the museum can meet modern expectations for museum facilities.[23] A planned Spiral building was abandoned; in its place a new Exhibition Road Quarter designed by Amanda Levete's AL_A was created.[24] It features a new entrance on Exhibition Road, a porcelain-tiled courtyard (inaugurated in 2017 as the Sackler Courtyard and renamed the Exhibition Road Courtyard in 2022)[25] and a new 1,100-square-metre underground gallery space (the Sainsbury Gallery) accessed through the Blavatnik Hall. The Exhibition Road Quarter project provided 6,400 square metres of extra space, which is the largest expansion at the museum in over 100 years.[26] It opened on 29 June 2017.[27]

In March 2018, it was announced that the Duchess of Cambridge would become the first royal patron of the museum.[28] on 15 September 2018, the first V&A museum outside London, V&A Dundee, opened.[29] The museum, built as a cost of £80.11m, is located on Dundee's waterfront, and is focused on Scottish design, furniture, textiles, fashion, architecture, engineering and digital design.[30] Although it uses the V&A name, its operation and funding is independent of the V&A.[31]

The museum also runs the Young V&A at Bethnal Green, which reopened on 1 July 2023;[32] it used to run Apsley House, and also the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. The Theatre Museum is now closed; the V&A Theatre Collections are now displayed within the South Kensington building.

^ Physick 1982, p. 16. ^ a b c Sheppard 1975, p. 248. ^ Physick 1982, p. 19. ^ Physick 1982, p. 22. ^ Harry Francis Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century 1996 Mallgrave p. 226 ^ Physick 1982, p. 30. ^ "Queen Victoria's Journals – Information Site". qvj.chadwyck.com. ^ Physick 1982, p. 35. ^ Sheppard 1975, p. 97. ^ Sheppard 1975, p. 252. ^ Physick 1982, p. 252. ^ "No. 27081". The London Gazette. 19 May 1899. p. 3186. ^ "A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum". ArtMag.com. ^ "A Grand Design: A History of the Victoria and Albert Museum". Victoria and Albert Museum. 29 July 2015. ^ Physick 1982, p. 246. ^ Sheppard 1975, p. 254. ^ Physick 1982, p. 269. ^ a b Physick 1982, p. 270. ^ "Designing Britain – BCMI Introduction". Vads.ahds.ac.uk. 20 December 2002. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2011. ^ a b Banham & Hillier 1976, p. 58. ^ "ARTS | V&A to have £150m facelift". BBC News. 18 April 2002. Retrieved 12 May 2011. ^ "Completed FuturePlan projects". V&A. ^ "FuturePlan". V&A. ^ Lusiardi, Federica (27 April 2016). "The renovated V&A by Amanda Levete Architects". inexhibit. Retrieved 19 March 2017. ^ Thorpe, Vanessa; Walters, Joanna (1 October 2022). "V&A drops financial ties with Sackler family over links with opioids". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2023. ^ Cite error: The named reference dezeen was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ Cite error: The named reference quarter opening was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ "Kensington Palace on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 26 March 2018. ^ Cite error: The named reference moore was invoked but never defined (see the help page). ^ "V&A Dundee opens its doors to the world". BBC. 15 September 2018. ^ "Everything you need to know about the V&A Dundee". BBC. 12 September 2018. ^ Charman, Helen (March 2023). "Young V&A – Countdown to Summer 2023". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
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