V&A East opens its doors with ‘genuinely exciting’ exhibits

V&A East museum opening April — Displays are ‘selected to appeal to younger visitors more interested in contemporary culture, politics and social justice than historic artefacts’

(Image credit: Tristan Fewings / Getty Images)

For centuries, east London’s Lower Lea Valley was “a place of sullen and sometimes surreal industry”, said Catherine Slessor in The Guardian: people still talk about its “fridge mountain”.

But all that changed in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. This area became a focal point of the athletics – and when the Games ended, it was decided that their legacy would be the “Olympicopolis”, a cultural quarter inspired by the “Albertopolis” that was built in west London in the wake of the Great Exhibition. The quarter’s tongue-twisty nickname didn’t stick, but the vision was pursued, and its latest addition is this new outpost of the V&A.

Constructed at a cost of £135m, V&A East has “neither its own collection nor its own acquisition budget”, said Eleanor Halls in The Telegraph. Instead, it displays items borrowed from the archive of its parent institution in South Kensington – selected to appeal to younger visitors more interested in contemporary culture, politics and social justice than historic artefacts. “To mark that shift”, an 18ft-tall statue of a young black woman by Thomas J. Price stands outside the museum. He was among some 30,000 people aged 18 to 35 who were consulted about the museum, and some of their hopes for it – “equity”, “accountability”, “advocacy”, “generosity” – are engraved on the windows.

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But if that makes you fear that this is going to be a collection “defined by buzz-words”, that will dissipate when you go inside, to the upstairs galleries answering the prompt “Why We Make”. These “luminous, unimposing” spaces contain some 500 exhibits – ranging from Vivienne Westwood costumes to Althea McNish’s glorious textiles – and feel “genuinely exciting”. But arguably the best reason to visit now is the inaugural temporary exhibition, which takes you – with headphones – through the history of black music in Britain. It covers everything from gospel and jazz to two-tone, ska and grime, while exploring the impact of the slave trade, and the way music has been used to convey resistance and suffering, as well as hope.

This museum contains much to celebrate, said Laura Freeman in The Times. And yet, it also disappoints. The building itself looks odd, all pointy like a “reconstructed Toblerone”. And the problems continue inside. The halls and stairwells are characterless; surfaces are “universally hard”. The signs look like “Scrabble tiles”; the benches are ugly (but comfy); and the bins would make William Morris shudder. How can a museum dedicated to design “be so insensitive to detail, beauty and proportion”?

As for the galleries, wandering them I found “my toes tingling with pleasure” at the beauty, the craftsmanship, the ingenuity, and also “curling in agony” at all the modish references to “lived experience” and “transcultural identities”. These flaws are maddening. But the museum is still a wonderful resource. “I am thrilled it is here.”

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