Medieval and Renaissance Galleries

Just giving out the facts and figures - ten new galleries, £30 million spent and 1,800 objects displayed - doesn't do the V&A's latest interior redecoration justice. Rather, it's as if a cutting-edge museum containing a millennia-and-a-half's worth of art and culture had landed within the footprint of the venerable old building.

Starting with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in 300 and ending with the rebirth of European thought by 1600 - the Enlightenment at the end of a Dark Ages tunnel if you will - the 'MedRen' wing is a stunning and scholarly addition to an already word-class institution.

The centrepiece is a reconfiguration of an imposing triple-height sculpture court as a Renaissance piazza. The feel is of walking through the garden or courtyard of a Medici's villa, past Giambologna's imposing figure of 'Samson Slaying a Philistine' and a gentle Narcissus gazing cheekily into a water feature. Beyond is a reconstruction of a Northern church nave, complete with an entire marble and alabaster choirscreen, denoting the transition from outdoors to in. It really works.

But let's begin at the beginning. No one will miss the dingy old side rooms of art nouveau furniture that MedRen's architects, MUMA, have turned into a suite of light-filled galleries, with additional mezzanines and a medieval 'street' connecting new build to old. The curators manage to tell complex stories in just a few strides too, for example of how waning pagan rituals, such as burying coins with the dead to pay the ferryman, gave way to the birth of Christendom and the cults of saints, such as the brutally martyred St Thomas (à) Becket, whose much hacked-up body bits are supposedly preserved in a beautifully enamelled reliquary.

Individual objects such as these are hard to tease out when there's so much to see and take in, from shifting architectural styles to themes of 'Noble Living' or 'Splendour and Society', but these galleries would require hours and days to pick apart and appreciate properly, so there's plenty to come back for.
The spectacular set pieces in each room - arches, church windows or entire ceilings - help dictate a measured pace through the exhibits, while also offering great framing devices through the spaces.

There's interaction aplenty, allowing you to don an armoured gauntlet, draw your own portrait in profile like Donatello or discover perspective through Dürer, but it's never intrusive. Even with such truly sensational woodcarving and stained glass at every turn, this display's most vital trajectory is its succinct portrayal of how objects meant for devotion or function would soon become things of art and beauty in their own right.