LONDON | V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford

In 2024, I showed Oscar from Denver, Colorado the highlights of London. It was his first time in England. In contrast, Thanh and I have been to the capital of the United Kingdom many times. During the weekend of Pentecost 2026, we went together for a weekend of museums, food, and a concert.

From the City of London we took a bus to the V&A East Storehouse. But that wasn’t what I thought we would visit… so we also visited the actual V&A East.

V&A East and V&A East Storehouse

The opening of V&A East represents one of the most significant developments in London’s cultural landscape since the regeneration of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Created as an expansion of the historic Victoria and Albert Museum, the project consists of two complementary venues in Stratford: V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum.

Together, they aim to make the museum’s collections, archives and creative resources more accessible while reflecting the diversity and creativity of contemporary London. Situated within the East Bank cultural district, they form part of a wider cluster of cultural and educational institutions established on the former Olympic Park.

Bringing the V&A to east London

Founded in 1852, the Victoria and Albert Museum has long been one of the world’s leading museums of art, design and performance. For decades, however, the vast majority of its collections remained hidden in storage. The V&A East project was conceived as a way to bring more of those collections into public view while creating a major cultural destination in East London.

Rather than creating a single building, the museum developed two distinct but connected venues. V&A East Storehouse opened first in 2025, while the neighbouring V&A East Museum welcomed visitors in April 2026.

Together they represent a new approach to what a museum can be: less focused on traditional display cases and more centred on participation, discovery and access.

V&A East Storehouse

V&A East Storehouse occupies part of the former London 2012 Olympic Media and Broadcast Centre, now known as Here East. Designed by the architectural practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the facility transforms what was once a behind-the-scenes museum storage operation into a public experience.

The scale of the building is immediately striking. Spread across several levels, it houses more than half a million objects, hundreds of thousands of books and extensive archival collections.

Unlike conventional museums, visitors are encouraged to explore storage areas directly, with objects displayed on open shelving and visible storage racks. Fashion, furniture, sculpture, theatre design, ceramics, textiles and industrial design sit side by side, creating an environment that often feels more like a giant cabinet of curiosities than a traditional museum gallery.

One of the Storehouse’s most innovative features is the ‘Order an Object‘ programme. Visitors can browse the collection online before their visit and request specific items to be brought out for close inspection in dedicated study spaces. The initiative allows members of the public to engage directly with objects that would normally remain inaccessible in museum storage.

The building also offers unusual opportunities to observe museum work in progress. Conservation studios, storage operations and collection management activities are visible from public walkways, providing insight into the daily work required to care for a national collection. Visitors can look down into vast storage halls, view conservators at work and gain a better understanding of how museums operate behind the scenes.

Among the most remarkable objects on display are large-scale architectural fragments that could never be shown in the V&A’s South Kensington galleries.

These include sections of the former Robin Hood Gardens housing estate and the spectacular fifteenth-century Torrijos Ceiling from Spain, both of which demonstrate the Storehouse’s ability to accommodate objects of extraordinary scale.

Two other notable exhibits are the 1937 Edgar J Kaufmann Office, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the backcloth for ‘The Firebird‘, designed by Natalia Goncharova, about 1926, for Serge Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes.

V&A East Museum

A short walk away stands V&A East Museum, the second part of the project and the more conventional museum of the two. Designed by the acclaimed Irish architectural practice O’Donnell + Tuomey, the building’s distinctive form has been compared to folded fabric and haute couture garments, reflecting the V&A’s long-standing connection to fashion and design. Its honey-coloured concrete exterior gives it a distinctive presence within the East Bank development.

The museum was developed with a strong emphasis on contemporary creativity and the cultural life of East London. While drawing upon the V&A’s historic collections, it focuses on the people, ideas and creative practices shaping society today.

Permanent galleries explore why people create, examining themes such as identity, community, innovation and social change through objects from across the worlds of art, design, fashion, music and popular culture.

Temporary exhibitions provide a platform for contemporary issues and cultural movements. The museum’s opening programme includes exhibitions examining the influence of Black British music and the continuing impact of creativity on modern society, reinforcing its ambition to connect historic collections with present-day culture.

The architecture itself plays an important role in the visitor experience. Large, flexible gallery spaces are designed to accommodate changing exhibitions, performances and events, while public areas encourage visitors to meet, work and spend time within the building. This reflects a broader ambition to create a cultural hub rather than simply a museum destination.

Part of the East Bank vision

Both venues form part of East Bank, a major cultural and educational quarter created within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The development brings together institutions including Sadler’s Wells East, BBC Music Studios, University College London East and the London College of Fashion. The aim is to create a new cultural centre for London beyond the traditional museum district of South Kensington.

The decision to locate the project in Stratford reflects the continuing transformation of East London following the 2012 Olympic Games. By bringing national collections, creative industries and educational institutions together in one location, East Bank seeks to establish a long-term cultural legacy for the area.

A new model for the museum

Taken together, V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum represent an ambitious rethinking of the museum experience.

One offers unprecedented access to the hidden workings of a national collection, while the other explores contemporary creativity through exhibitions, events and public programmes.

Rather than functioning as a satellite branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A East has emerged as a major cultural destination in its own right, combining collection access, contemporary culture and community engagement in a way that reflects twenty-first-century London.

A visit

The Storehouse is a fun visit and offers an other take on exhibiting objects. The first YouTube video (‘Me At The Zoo‘), a Frankfurt kitchen or a French pre-internet device called Minitel. You find it there.

The main V&A East Museum is a very nice building. But as the Museum At the Stream (Museum Aan de Stroom, MAS) in Antwerp, the building is more impressive than the collection.