V&A East Storehouse is now welcoming school visits

V&A East Storehouse, the latest addition to the V&A collection of museums, opened its doors to the public for the first time in the summer following a 10-years project. 

Spanning four levels and 16,000 square metres of the former London 2012 Olympics Media and Broadcast Centre, the museum is a purpose-built home for more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives. The visitor attraction is part of East Bank, the new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

The working museum store has objects spanning every creative discipline from fashion to theatre, streetwear to sculpture, design icons to pop pioneers.

Tim Reeve, deputy director and COO of V&A, said: “V&A East Storehouse is a completely new cultural experience and backstage pass to the V&A, transforming how people can access their national collections on a scale unimaginable until now. From conservation and how we care for our collections and cultural heritage around the world, to the artistry of our Museum Technicians and new research – there’s so much to discover.

“I hope our visitors enjoy finding their creative inspiration and immersing themselves in the full theatre and wonder of the V&A as a dynamic working museum.”  

Exploring the museum 

Visitors enter the museum into the central Weston Collections Hall, where they are surrounded by vistas across all levels with a cross-section of the collections on display. Over 100 small displays, exploring topics including fashion, social change and technology are open to explore and ‘hacked end’ displays are built into the end of storage systems, removing glass cases to get visitors closer to collections. 

Items in the Weston Collections Hall range from ancient Buddhist sculptures to PJ Harvey’s guitar, paintings by Angelica Kauffman, items from the Glastonbury Music Festival archive, Suffragette scarves, vintage football shirts, Thomas Heatherwick’s model for the London 2012 Olympic Cauldron and road signs designed by Margaret Calvert.

Also on display are large-scale items from the collection, including a building section from Robin Hood Gardens, a former residential estate in east London, the 17th century Agra Colonnade from the bathhouse at the fort of Agra, and the largest Picasso work in the world measuring 10 metres high and 11 metres wide.

Educational visits 

The museum is preparing to welcome school groups for workshops and self-guided visits which will be bookable for the 2026 summer term at a later date.

Mainstream state schools in east London can currently book self-guided visits and workshops for up to 30 students as part of the pilot phase. Self-guided visits are for Years 5-13 and workshops are targeted for Years 9-13. 

There are lunch facilities which must be booked prior to visiting and this also provides access to storage lockers.