{"id":550025,"date":"2025-11-05T05:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550025\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T05:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T05:26:16","slug":"massive-stratford-museum-has-an-official-opening-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550025\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Stratford Museum Has An Official Opening Date"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a busy couple of years for London\u2019s iconic Victoria & Albert museum<\/a>, with a whole bunch of major development projects on the go across the city.<\/p>\n

First, there was the \u00a313 million revamp of the museum\u2019s childhood-focused Bethnal Green outpost, which reopened as the Young V&A<\/a> to\u00a0 in June 2023 to critical acclaim, picking up the Art Fund Museum of the Year Award the following summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This spring then saw the opening of another very well-received project, the V&A East Storehouse<\/a>, a \u2018working museum\u2019 purpose-built to house half a million objects from the museum\u2019s various archives while offering Londoners a peek behind the scenes to see how a museum goes about curating and caring for the items in its collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now, the museum group has announced the opening date for the second part of its east London development project, V&A East, which is due to open to the public on Saturday, April 18 2026<\/strong>.\u00a0Opening just shy of a decade after it was first announced as part of the \u00a31.1 billion development of Stratford\u2019s East Bank cultural quarter, the 7,000 square metre museum will bring together exhibits that speak to both east London\u2019s creative heritage and the voices that are shaping contemporary culture across the globe today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"V&A
\nPhotograph: V&A East Museum Why We Make Galleries render \u00a9 JA Projects <\/p>\n

Also announced today are details of the free-to-visit permanent galleries, new commissions and temporary exhibitions that comprise the museum\u2019s opening displays.\u00a0These include the Why We Make Galleries, a permanent display spread across two of the museum\u2019s five floors. The galleries will feature 500 objects from the V&A\u2019s collection, arranged into ten key themes addressing the most pressing issues in contemporary society, from representation, identity and wellbeing to social justice and environmental action.<\/p>\n

Early visitors to the museum will also be able to see the first iteration of a six-monthly creative commissions programme unveiling eight new east London-inspired artworks from the likes of Turner Prize-nominated artist Rene Mati\u0107 and Tony and Olivier Award-winning designer Es Devlin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And finally, the venue\u2019s temporary exhibition programme will open with the already-announced The Music is Black: A British Story. A landmark exhibition exploring how Black British music has shaped culture in Britain and beyond, it feature exhibits including Joan Armatrading\u2019s childhood guitar, looks worn by Little Simz and newly acquired photography by Dennis Morris and Jennie Baptiste.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A
\nPhotograph: Nolay, London, 2005, \u00a9 Sam White <\/p>\n

The exhibition will also inspire the\u00a0 inaugural edition of a new festival that will take place annually each spring, bringing together the East Bank\u2019s neighbouring cultural institutions, which include the London College of Fashion, the BBC Music Studios, Sadler\u2019s Wells East and UCL East.<\/p>\n

That sure sounds like a hell of a lot of excellent contemporary art and design to take in. Keen to be one of the first visitors to see it all? Details for the museum\u2019s grand opening are yet to be revealed, but get April 18 marked in the diary watch this space! As always, we\u2019ll be giving you all the details as soon as they\u2019re announced.<\/p>\n

London riverside music festival Labyrinth on the Thames could almost double in size in 2026<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

London is getting the world premiere of a new musical based on the cult movie \u2018Pride\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

G<\/strong>et the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0<\/strong>follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in the loop: sign up for our\u00a0<\/strong>free Time Out London newsletter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a busy couple of years for London\u2019s iconic Victoria & Albert museum, with a whole bunch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[2606,748,13721,393,4884,257,13722,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-550025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-categories-art","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-news-art","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115495435298291404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}