V&A East Storehouse

The V&A Storehouse, located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, in Stratford ((not-upon-Avon), a northeast suburb of London), opened in the spring of 2025. It is a massive, purpose-built museum warehouse that also includes facilities for research, education, preservation, and other museum activities. It is perhaps modeled after the Luce Center for the Study of American Art, at the Met in NYC, which also integrates storage with study, preservation, and so on, and which also employs a system whereby one can order up an item (get its QR first) and be able to examine it closely, in person. Both the Luce and the Storehouse are open to the public. For museum-lovers and for V&A-lovers, the Storehouse is a must-see. We were there June 17th.

We took the bus to Tottenham Court Road, then the tube some miles
to Stratford; at least it was the brand-new Elizabeth Line

Adequate signage

Stratford is no sleepy suburb; the Westfield mall where the
station empties is twice the size of the Westfield Mall at Les
Halles in Paris

Part of the Olympic park

Ditto: sculpture/observation tower

It's about a half mile walk from the station/mall to the
Storehouse

Note Lego anti-tank obstacles

One of the two giant warehouses

Stepping off the elevator

Like the V&A itself, it's all a bit overwhelming...

But at every turn, there are things of interest; no interpretive
signage, however...get the QR code, click on it, and, voila!, the
description is there on your phone

You can discern all four floors in this view

Interesting space-saving up-right piano

Paintings everywhere, but in warehouse presentation mode

A double-bass; must have been 8 feet tall

Peering into the second building

Pull-tab purse; we must have missed the pull-tab chain mail vest

Looking down into one of the research/preservation/whatever areas

Kaufman's office--a complete Frank Lloyd Wright room; see below

Thus; click to enlarge; Kaufman's was the great department
store of Pittsburgh; Kaufman's son was a FLW disciple...

Up closer; gorgeous cypress plywood

Spare doll houses

1920s kitchen design from Frankfurt, click...

So where's the microwave?

Perhaps this is not the place to go if you have to have themed or
chronological presentations...

Fashion

Ceiling of a Moorish chapel from Spain

Boots worn by David Bowie; inexplicably, to us, the
Storehouse has a large and high-tech David Bowie collection
and research center...yes, he gave them the money, but why
would they accept it?!