V&A East

It’s been a busy few years for London’s iconic Victoria & Albert museum, thanks to a whole bunch of major development projects on the go across the city.

First, there was the £13 million revamp of the museum’s childhood-focused Bethnal Green outpost, which reopened as the Young V&A to in June 2023 and was named the Art Fund Museum of the Year the following summer. Then, in spring 2025, came the groundbreaking new V&A East Storehouse, a ‘working museum’ purpose-built to house half a million objects rom the museum’s various archives while offering Londoners a peek behind the scenes to see how a museum actually operates.

And finally, just shy of a decade after it was first announced as part of the £1.1 billion development of Stratford’s East Bank cultural quarter, the long-awaited V&A East is open. Featuring 7,000 square metres of exhibiting space, the South Kensington institution’s edgy, younger sibling feels like a museum for the masses. 

The calm interior feels like a blank canvas for the exhibitions, with white walls, tall glass windows, high ceilings and wide spiralling staircases. Designed by architects O’Donnell + Tuomey, who also created the nearby Sadler’s Wells East, the building’s unusual geometric shape was originally inspired by an x-ray of a Balenciaga dress displayed at the V&A South Kensington in 2017. 

Its permanent gallery, called ‘Why We Make’, explores creativity in all its forms. Across two floors, more than 500 objects from the V&A’s collection are displayed, spanning art, architecture, design, performance, and fashion. The display is arranged by theme, with topics including identity, wellbeing, social justice and environmental action.

It’s thoughtfully curated to highlight pieces from London, especially the city’s east – one item on display is an 1830s sketch of the original design for Victoria Park. London-based artists and craft makers take centre stage, from Alexander McQueen to Yinka Ilori and choreographer Akram Khan. A Walthamstow FC football shirt featuring the William Morris ‘Yare’ print is displayed alongside other Morris prints. Fabulously camp and sparkly costumes designed for a Michael Clark and Leigh Bowery performance at Sadler’s Wells in 1987 steal your attention. 

There’s tonnes more to get stuck into, too. The past merges with the future in this thoroughly modern museum, which feels like it wants east Londoners to know it belongs to them. The space has been co-designed with young people, creatives and locals, and we think they’ll be very pleased with the result.