United Kingdom · GB

V&A East Storehouse

V&A East Storehouse is the Victoria and Albert Museum's vast working storage facility flung open to the public—a kind of backstage pass to one of the world's great collections of art, design and performance. Tucked inside the former London 2012 Olympics Media and Broadcast Centre at Here East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, it houses more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and 1,000 archives across four levels bigger than thirty basketball courts. Rather than a fixed route of curated rooms, you roam open shelving at your own curiosity, free of charge. Opened to the public on 31 May 2025 after a decade of planning, it is the first of two V&A East sites in Stratford, the second being the V&A East Museum. The collection spans 5,000 years of human creativity, from Roman frescoes and samurai swords to haute couture, streetwear, Suffragette scarves, vintage football shirts and the instruments of British pop pioneers. What makes it genuinely new is the access: you can watch conservators at work, scan QR codes to learn the stories behind objects, and even book a close-up viewing of almost anything in the building.