Go East!


The V&A is helping to put a post-industrial neighbourhood back on the map.

It’s time to head out to discover London’s eastern reaches and its newest cultural space, V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) East. Just twenty years ago, here in the heart of Stratford, a formerly post-industrial and brownfield site was regenerated in the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Today, this thriving hub is home to an array of high-profile cultural institutions, as well as new local facilities. They include homes, roads, well-designed cycleways, a regenerated canalside and a purpose-built school. There are newly-landscaped green spaces and renewed waterways. Nature now thrives on land that was once contaminated by decades of industrial production.

V&A East is now at the heart of that regeneration. It comprises two separate but complementary halves: the just-unveiled V&A East Museum together with V&A Storehouse, which opened its doors in 2025. Along with outposts of the BBC, Sadlers Wells ballet company and the University of the Arts London, V&A East is putting this once forlorn and forgotten corner of working-class London back on the cultural map.

Access all areas. V&A Storehouse. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

Industrial warehouse

V&A Storehouse is, from the outside, almost anonymous. A glazed entrance, revealing a modest café and a small cluster of on trend mid-century modern seating, is the only clue to what lies beyond. Inside is a vast Ikea-like warehouse of quirky yet precious treasures just waiting to be discovered. There are 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and over 1,000 archives, spread over three floors of visitor space.

The concept of the museum archive is turned on its head here. At V&A Storehouse, the visitor literally breathes the same air as the content. The dramatic 16,000 square-metres of display space and the Storehouses’s industrial-looking metal walkways, put visitors within tantalisingly-touching distance of the content. This must surely give the curators one or two sleepless nights. The cutting-edge design was conceived by New York-based studio Diller, Scofidio + Renfro.

The Storehouse is home to The David Bowie Centre. Here we explore the global impact the ground-breaking and gender-bending artist had on popular culture. It’s a rare treat to watch curators conserving the Thin White Duke’s costumes and other precious artefacts from the balcony above. Over 100 mini-displays frame the space and QR codes encourage visitors to find out more. These descriptions and their rich accompanying narratives are often penned by members of the wider curatorial team. This gives voice to museum staffers whose contributions might otherwise go unheard or unrecognised.

The Frankfurt Kitchen. V&A Storehouse. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

Frank Lloyd Wright

Larger must-see objects include impressive and atmospheric room sets. Perhaps best-known is the 1930s Cypress-ply interior of the office of Pittsburgh retailer and store owner, Edgar J Kauffman. This is the ground-breaking work of America’s most famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who pioneered an an organic approach to his craft.

Also popular at the Storehouse is the forerunner of the fitted kitchen. The Frankfurt Kitchen (1926/27) was the brainchild of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. It was designed for the German city’s municipal flats. Its manufacture was based on new thinking around the principles of scientific professionalism within the domestic sphere. As Margarete was not a cook herself, she interviewed local women to understand what they most needed from the perfect kitchen. This was at a time when the kitchen in Europe remained an almost exclusively female domain.

A new museum for London

The V&A East museum is an altogether different proposition. Grounded in the diverse culture of the local neighbourhood, its minimal and elegant architecture mirrors an altogether fresh approach to curation. The focus here is firmly on contemporary and creative culture and the perspectives of young people. The museum spotlights, especially, the nature of making and hosts intriguing displays of costume, furniture, home decor, textiles and more.

This is a calm and airy space for pause and reflection. It encourages us to consider the nature, as well as the challenges and opportunities, of manufacture in the globalised and digitised age of AI. Conceived by Dublin-based architects O’Donnell & Tuomey, the new building’s bold and strikingly angular design, suggests Vs and As. The concept was, according to its architects, inspired by the way a Balenciaga dress drapes from a clothes hanger. V&A East Museum hosts two free galleries of over 500 objects. Its current paid-for exhibition celebrates the influence of black British music. The show has proved popular with early visitors.

The minimalist curation at the new V&A Museum East. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

Panoramic view

The museum overlooks the West Ham football stadium. It’s one of the commanding vistas that can be enjoyed from the building’s rooftop terrace. There are panoramic views over the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and beyond. This dramatic scene is best enjoyed in the morning, with the sun still rising in the east, illuminating the spectacle.

The only downside of V&A East is, perhaps, that both of its outposts (which are about ten minutes from one another) can be tricky to find. Signposting is notably limited, so much so that the museum employs patient members of its staff to act as human signposts, directing people out of the maze of the Westfield shopping mall.

Both V&A buildings nestle among retail outlets, eateries, railway lines, waterways, green spaces and tall buildings, many of which can look confusingly similar to the first-time visitor.

That said, it’s well worth taking the trouble to seek out V&A East. Both new venues are linked by efficient rail connections, at Hackney Wick and Stratford (on the Windrush and Elizabeth train lines respectively). Better yet, both places are free to visit. And each has a decent set of cafés and restaurants, with an offer inspired by the cuisines of the local communities who have shaped this diverse part of East London. V&A Museum East has a rather good shop too.

 

About the author

Antony Robbins (aka Mr Londoner) is a broadcaster, writer and former museum director. Check me out on Instagram @meetmrlondoner You can meet Mr Londoner here