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London has long been a powerhouse of cultural innovation. This is a place where megastars hone their craft, where playwrights debut their productions, where artists train and where writers find inspiration. So, it’s little surprise that a new venue here in the capital has featured on TIME magazine’s latest edition of World’s Greatest Places.
Each year, TIME’s international network of correspondents and contributors nominate places around the world that they believe are offering new and exciting experiences for travellers. The result is a list of 100 game-changing hotels, cruises, restaurants, attractions, museums and parks, from Philadelphia’s Netflix House to Sydney’s Fish Market.
There were just two places in the UK that made the cut this year, one of which was London’s V&A East Storehouse. TIME spotlighted the venue, which opened in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Park in May last year, for its ‘radically different approach’ and the way that it ‘reimagines the museum-going experience as a two-way conversation, not a top-down monologue’.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Storehouse, the concept is fairly simple. Stacked with more than 250,000 objects and 350,000 books from the V&A’s archives, it offers a peek behind the scenes to show how a working museum goes about cataloguing and caring for artefacts. It’s the first public venue of its kind.
Unlike a regular museum, there are no permanent displays and archivists can move the objects around at any time. There are no lengthy gallery texts, instead just library-like barcodes and the odd QR code. Essentially, it’s a working museum storage facility that invites the public in.
One of the venue’s standout features is its David Bowie Centre. In 2023, more than 90,000 items from the star’s personal archive were donated to the V&A, from iconic costumes to Post-it notes scribbled with his thoughts. If there are any specific items you want to see, you can request them via the museum’s free Order an Object service. Otherwise, you can book a visit to see the small display that rotates at various intervals.
That Order an Object service applies to the entire archive, by the way. According to TIME, nearly 30,000 objects have been booked since the museum opened – one person apparently travelled across the ocean in order to view a distant ancestor’s wedding dress. You can browse the museums collection and request to see an artefact here – there are half a million pieces to choose from.
The Storehouse is also getting an exciting new neighbour later this year. The long-awaited V&A East opens in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on April 18. It will have two permanent ‘Why We Make’ galleries featuring 500 objects from the V&A’s collection, arranged into ten key themes addressing the most pressing issues in contemporary society, from representation, identity and wellbeing to social justice and environmental action.
There will also be space to temporary exhibitions, the first of which is The Music is Black: A British Story. The inaugural exhibition will have 200 objects exploring the impact of Black artistry on British music, culture and beyond from 1900 all the way to present day. You can book tickets for that here.
Discover more of London’s greatest museums here.
Plus: Read why London is one of the best cities in the world right now.
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