Warehouse meets cabinet of curiosities

The route to the V&A East Storehouse leads through a landscape of transformation that has been reinventing itself since the 2012 Olympic Games. Between the winding paths of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, past office towers and sports facilities, lies the destination: a flat, elongated building with a matt metal façade. Only a small sign reveals that this is where the Victoria and Albert Museum has set up its new exhibition space.

Those expecting a museum spectacle will be disappointed. The V&A East Storehouse by Diller Scofidio + Renfro makes a deliberately quiet appearance. An anti-monument that refuses to represent. This unadorned building was once the Broadcast Centre from which images of the 2012 Games were transmitted around the world. The transformation followed the Olympic sustainability strategy: after the Olympics, the building was converted by the architectural firm Hawkins\Brown into a technology and innovation campus called Here East, which housed tech start-ups, artists' studios, university programmes – and finally the V&A. ‘As a Broadcast Centre, the building once served as a behind-the-scenes hub for producing public-facing content.,’ explains David Allin, project manager and partner at DS+R. ‘As the V&A East Storehouse, it retains that spirit of production, but now the public is invited inside to witness it firsthand.’

The foyer feels less like a museum and more like a start-up hub: exposed pipes, floor-to-ceiling glass walls, cast concrete surfaces, light-coloured laminates, plus a café corner and ‘creative spaces’ for workshops. What is striking is the absence of the expected: no reception desk, no shop, no museum logic. A narrow metal staircase leads upwards, through security doors with an airlock-like appearance, past narrow rows of shelves – a staged moment of compression. Then the space suddenly opens up: a 20-metre-high hall. The original building offered neither views nor natural light; it was intended for a data centre and was completely sealed. ‘Within this dense storage field, we conceptually excavated a central space,’ explains Allin. ‘The public is invited to venture deeper into the collection – moving through and among the layers of storage that define the space. By surrounding visitors in objects and extending storage in every direction, even beneath their feet, we aimed to create an immersive, three-dimensional cabinet of curiosities.’

Four levels of industrial shelving fill the field of vision, a powerful LED ceiling panel stretches overhead, and a glass floor in the centre provides an unobstructed view. A kaleidoscope of objects unfolds between machines, furniture, sculptures, garments and bicycles: 350,000 exhibits are stored here, sorted according to pragmatic criteria: size, material, conservation requirements. Much remains anonymous, without text panels, only barcode tags.
‘Our aim was not to make an architectural statement, but to place the V&A's collection at the center of the experience.’ says Allin. ‘The architecture functions as a support structure to organize the collection.’ Visitors encounter the holdings through large-format objects such as the multi-storey façade fragment of Robin Hood Gardens – the controversial brutalist housing complex designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in the 1970s, which was demolished in 2017 despite protests – and the Kaufmann Office, a complete interior from the 1930s designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for Pittsburgh retail magnate Edgar J. Kaufmann. It is the only complete Wright interior outside the United States, with original woodwork, furniture and textiles. But small-format collection objects also find their place here – brooches next to balustrades, pill boxes next to portals.

This wide range of objects – from fragments to complete interiors – required a flexible architectural language. The existing industrial structure became the starting point and material palette: standard steel profiles were bolted to existing beams to create new levels. Objects rest in open plywood boxes and on pallets, which also serve as displays. The pragmatic logic of industrial storage became the design DNA. The choice of materials is uncompromising: steel, concrete, glass. No refinement, no ornamentation. But the industrial harshness is broken up by a sophisticated lighting concept. The LED ceiling modulates the atmosphere depending on the time of day and gives the room a floating clarity.

‘The materials and atmosphere are in service of making the Storehouse efficient, flexible, and functional for the handling and storage of the V&A's collection,’ explains DS+R. ‘Yet here, the public is invited in. Instead of looking through glass at a back-of-house operation, visitors and objects occupy, share and breathe the same space. When collections staff move a heavy object with a forklift, you see and hear it; when a large artwork is photographed, you see the flash.’ In a conventional museum setting, visitors follow a predetermined path – here, they are free to wander, ask questions and even request objects from the archive for viewing. Using the ‘Order an Object’ service, available seven days a week, they can select up to five objects online in advance and view them at a specified time. The staff retrieve the pieces from the depots and present them at specially designated workstations – a radical form of accessibility that no longer treats museum collections as untouchable sanctuaries, but as objects of study. What sets the Storehouse apart is its transparency. There is no separation between the depot and the public. For example, a glass-fronted gallery allows visitors to watch the conservators at work – from a bird's eye view, so to speak, they can observe how paintings are cleaned, textiles restored and objects catalogued. These insights into the normally hidden backstage processes make the museum a place of production, not just presentation. ‘We wanted to democratise the museum,’ explains director Tristram Hunt. ‘Not just show the results of our work, but the work itself.’

The real innovation is in the egalitarian way the objects are treated. A design classic by Charles Eames stands next to an anonymous industrial product, a masterpiece of goldsmithing next to a mass-produced plastic item. ‘Every object tells a story,’ says curator Corinna Gardner. ‘Our job is not to evaluate, but to preserve and explore.’ This equality is radical and contrasts with the curatorial tradition of the V&A itself. Since its founding in 1852, the museum in South Kensington has been a place of hierarchical presentation – masterpieces under glass, arranged according to eras and styles. The Storehouse reverses this logic: here there are no narratives, no master stories, only the pure mass of things. It is as if the museum has turned itself inside out and is questioning its own systems of order.

‘We see it as all three: a backdrop for objects, a flexible infrastructure for storage and display, and a cultural statement about how museums might be more transparent and use their resources more productively,’ says DS+R. The Storehouse itself is not a museum; it is part of one. It reveals the ecology of museum life: conservation, research, object handling, lending. These have always been central to museum practice, but their new visibility signals a shift in priorities. The 2012 Olympic sustainability strategy emphasised reuse as a long-term strategy for East London. ‘From the outset, the 2012 London Olympics legacy plan emphasized reuse,’ explains Allin. "The Broadcast Centre was no exception. After the Games, it was adapted as part of an innovation and technology campus with tenants ranging from tech start-ups to artists' studios, university programs, and eventually, the V&A.' Instead of focusing on spectacular new buildings, the V&A shows how creatively existing structures can be used – an approach that is in line with the museum's founding principles: accessibility, education and inspiration through design.

In September 2025, the Storehouse opened another space: the David Bowie Centre, in honour of the British musician, singer, producer and actor who died in 2016. You enter through an inconspicuous door, which you almost have to search for. The London-based architectural firm IDK has impressively translated Bowie's creative method into architecture here: ‘Cutting up and rearranging’ – cutting up ideas and putting them back together again. Nine mini displays show 200 objects at the start. The iconic costumes are displayed in showcases – Freddie Burretti's ‘Life on Mars’ suit, Kansai Yamamoto's Ziggy catsuit, Alexander McQueen's Union Jack tailcoat. Above visitors' heads hangs a clothes rail with twenty additional stage outfits in sealed Tyvek covers with viewing windows – a pragmatic solution that echoes the modular construction system of the Storehouse. This ‘kit of parts’ principle, which the architects also developed for the entire building, is based on standardised, flexibly combinable elements made of steel, plywood and industrial shelving that can be reconfigured as needed. IDK adapts this industrial logic for the Bowie exhibition, a consistent continuation of the architectural approach.

The centrepiece is access to the complete archive with over 90,000 Bowie objects. Visitors can order up to five originals per appointment via the ‘Order an Object’ service. The strength lies not in spectacle, but in intimacy – which Tim Reeve, Deputy Director of the V&A, praises as ‘elegant, imaginative and intimate design’. But this intimacy requires regulation: access is free, but limited in time – tickets are released every six weeks. The opening creates new hurdles. For Bowie fans who make the pilgrimage to the new archive, they are worth it.

The architecture is consistently understated. No gestures, no hierarchies. DS+R have built a framework that does not interpret the collection, but makes it accessible. The archive becomes an experience: ‘JJust as art continually evolves, so too do museums,’ says Allin. 'Yet the Storehouse is not a museum, it is part of one. It reveals to the public the broader ecology of museum life that is typically hidden from view: conservation, loans, research, object handling, and storage. These have always been central to museum practice, but their new visibility suggests a shift in priorities. It is a rebalancing of what the museum chooses to show, and how it defines its public role.' The Storehouse refuses to stage itself and it is precisely this that makes it so effective. It is not a white cube, but a workspace that is also a stage – for collecting, preserving and researching.

This radical equality of objects is fascinating – and challenging at the same time. Whereas traditional museum architecture imposes hierarchies and offers narratives, the Storehouse leaves visitors to their own devices at first. There is no common thread running through the collection, no information panels explaining connections, no curatorial narrative organising the objects. Instead: barcode tags, QR codes, the sheer mass of objects. This is liberating for those who want to make their own discoveries. And overwhelming for those who are looking for guidance. You stand in front of a Victorian hairpin next to a plastic stool from the 1960s and have to decide for yourself: what connects these things? What story do they tell? Or do they tell a story at all? Many visitors express enthusiasm for the openness of the concept. Others are irritated by the lack of contextualisation and miss the familiar museum tour. This division is significant: the Storehouse calls for a new form of engagement – more active, more self-determined, but also more strenuous. It is a museum for those who are prepared to organise and classify things themselves.

The Storehouse owes its impact primarily to an architectural design that is consistently dedicated to the process. Diller Scofidio + Renfro have designed a building that does not merely claim to be open, but actually practises openness. Visual connections instead of thresholds, rawness instead of representation – everything is geared towards permeability. From the fourth level, looking down through the industrial grating, you feel the vertigo that brings you to your knees. The architecture recedes and makes the work visible. It is precisely in this quiet retreat that there is an unexpected power, a clarity that focuses attention and shifts responsibility. The real relevance of this project: it questions what a museum can be today – and who has the authority to interpret its contents. The raw material of culture in a state of becoming, without filters, without hierarchy. The greatest innovation – and at the same time the greatest imposition of the V&A East Storehouse.