For a museum aimed at children, the V&A’s Museum of Childhood has never felt very much like fun. Standing like an imposing Victorian workhouse in London’s Bethnal Green, its cavernous interior has always had the air of a mausoleum of toys, with stacks of dusty games sealed disappointingly behind glass. Rows of Victorian doll’s houses and their haunted inhabitants stared out from sombre ranks of vitrines, in a way that seemed more geared towards antique collectors than kids. As its name suggests, it was a place where childhood went to die, providing a trip down memory lane for parents and grandparents, while their own children longed to be taken to the soft play centre.
All that has changed. After a three-year, £13m makeover, the cobwebs have been well and truly blown away, the gloomy building injected with dazzling new energy and a mischievous sense of fun – now fittingly rebranded as Young V&A.
“It’s about stimulating creativity, curiosity and ingenuity,” says Philippa Simpson, the V&A’s director of design, estate and public programme. “We want to encourage the next generation of designers, makers and doers – not be a nostalgia fest for parents.”
The project is the work of architects De Matos Ryan (DMR), who were responsible for the main structural changes, and AOC, which handled the interiors and exhibition design. Both conducted intensive months-long residencies and co-design workshops in the museum to determine what local families and schools wanted the place to be, engaging a staggering 22,000 people. The overwhelming response? “More light, more colour, more pattern, more sound!” says AOC’s Gill Lambert. In short, the place needed more zing.
