The V&A’s new working store and visitor attraction, V&A East Storehouse, opens to the public on 31 May 2025. It follows 10 years of planning and extensive audience consultation, with input from V&A East’s Youth Collective. Designed by world-renowned architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, it opens as part of East Bank, the new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, supported by the Mayor of London.
It promises a groundbreaking new museum experience spanning four levels, and at 16,000 m², it is bigger than 30 basketball courts. V&A East Storehouse takes over a large section of the former London 2012 Olympics Media and Broadcast Centre (now Here East). It is a new purpose-built home for over 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 Archives.
A world-first in size, scale and ambition, and a new source of inspiration for all, V&A East Storehouse immerses visitors in over half a million works spanning every creative discipline from fashion to theatre, streetwear to sculpture, design icons to pop pioneers. A busy and dynamic working museum store with an extensive self-guided experience, visitors can now get up close to their national collections on a scale and in ways not possible before.
Through the V&A’s radical new Order an Object service, anyone can now book to access any object at V&A East Storehouse, for free, seven days a week. From Mid-Century furniture to ancient Egyptian shoes and Roman frescoes, an early 14th century Simone Martini painting, Leigh Bowery costumes, Althea McNish fabrics, vintage band t-shirts and performance posters, and avant-garde fashion and couture from Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Vivienne Westwood, there’s something for everyone to explore. Since going live on 13 May, over 250 appointments have been booked to see over 1,000 objects from 14th-century and contemporary ceramics to a 17th-century carpet from Iran, 1930s wedding dresses and Julia Margaret Cameron photographs. So far, the most popular item ordered is a 1954 pink silk taffeta evening dress by Cristóbal Balenciaga.
Six large-scale objects anchor the space, on display for the first time in decades. Highlights include the 1930s Kaufmann Office, the only complete Frank Lloyd Wright interior outside the US, an exquisite 15th-century carved and gilded wooden ceiling from the now-lost Torrijos Palace in Spain, and a full-scale 20th-century Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Also on show is a building section from Robin Hood Gardens, a former residential estate in east London, the 17th century Agra Colonnade, an extraordinary example of Mughal architecture from the bathhouse at the fort of Agra, and the largest Picasso work in the world – a monumental Ballets Russes Le Train Bleu theatre stage cloth. At 10 metres high and 11 metres wide, the Picasso-signed stage cloth has been rarely seen since its debut in 1924. It is on display in the new David and Molly Lowell Borthwick Gallery of epic proportions, built to show the V&A’s striking collection of large-scale textiles and theatre stage cloths on rotation. These large objects are brought further to life with a series of co-production projects in collaboration with young East Londoners, communities, and creatives, highlighting multiple new voices and perspectives across the space, including oral histories, new films, publications and artworks in response.
Tim Reeve, Deputy Director and COO, V&A, who developed the concept for V&A East Storehouse, said: “V&A East Storehouse is a completely new cultural experience and backstage pass to the V&A, transforming how people can access their national collections on a scale unimaginable until now. From conservation and how we care for our collections and cultural heritage around the world, to the artistry of our Museum Technicians and new research, there’s so much to discover. I hope our Ground-breaking V&A East Storehouse opens to the public on Saturday, 31 May, visitors enjoy finding their creative inspiration and immersing themselves in the full theatre and wonder of the V&A as a dynamic working museum.”
Elizabeth Diller, Founding Partner, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the firm that designed the architecture for V&A East Storehouse, said: “To celebrate the heterogeneity of the V&A’s collection of collections—spanning a broad variety of mediums, scales, and historical periods—visitors will experience a sense of being immersed in a vast Cabinet of Curiosities. The Collections Hall invites visitors to explore pre-curated works surrounding them, not according to conventional curatorial logics or standard storage taxonomies, but guided instead by their own curiosities. It has been a joy to work with the V&A’s curators and conservators in creating this new kind of institution: neither warehouse nor museum, but rather a hybrid shared by staff and the public with expanded opportunities for access and exchange.”
V&A East Storehouse, Parkes Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, London, E20 3AX opens 31 May 2025
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Daily 10:00-18:00 with late night openings every Thursday and Saturday to 22:00.
Late nights include access to the V&A’s revolutionary new Order an Object service, curated self-guided experience and displays, special events, and café, e5 Storehouse.
Lead image: View of the Weston Collections Hall at V&A East Storehouse. Image by David Parry, PA Media Assignments