V&A children’s museum to open next summer

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has announced plans to reopen its east London children’s museum in summer 2023.

The venue in Bethnal Green was formerly called the V&A Museum of Childhood but has been renamed Young V&A. It was founded in 1872 and its £13.5m redevelopment is the biggest overhaul in its history. The project is led by architects AOC Architecture and De Matos Ryan.

The new spaces, which have been co-designed with children and young people, feature three interactive galleries – Play, Imagine and Design. There will be about 2,000 inspiring on display and a new learning centre.

New acquisitions include children’s protest art that engages with issues such as sustainability, gender, human rights and race. 

The V&A also announced plans to appoint a new emerging curatorial fellow at V&A East to support access and address racial disparity in the arts. This is a partnership with Frieze, Deutsche Bank and artist Yinka Shonibare.

Construction is continuing on V&A East’s two new sites in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The V&A East Storehouse will open in 2024, while the V&A East Museum will be unveiled in 2025. 

The V&A will begin its largest collection move in 2023, when objects will start to be moved to the V&A East Storehouse. The centre has been designed by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro. 

More than 260,000 objects, from the tiniest 16th-century dress pin to European couture and global fashion and textiles, large-scale theatre stage cloths and costume, mid-century furniture, Japanese arms and armour and architectural fragments and interiors from around the world, will move to a new purpose-built home.

V&A Dundee will celebrate its fifth birthday in 2023 with two new exhibitions. Plastic: Remaking Our World will present the story of plastic from invention to global ubiquity, while another exhibition will explore the history of the tartan pattern.