The house of the world-leading museum with a collection of objects, books, and an archive of human creativity. Victoria and Albert’s Museum holds a collection of UK national collections and is an excellent resource for studying architecture, fashion from many parts of the world, furniture, textile, photography, jewellery, glass, ceramic, book art, theatre, performance, and many more. The museum was founded to educate designers, manufacturers, and public art and design.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, United Kingdom, laid its first stone in 1852. For over 40 years, it was known as the South Kensington Museum. Still, it was later renamed after Queen Victoria and her husband, prince Albert’s contribution to the museum’s establishment. Each year millions of people work through its door to see its extraordinary collection visit its world-class exhibition, and attain myriad and simply experience the rich atmosphere of the building. In 1857 it moved to its present site and became the south Kensington Museum to make it easier for working to visit.
Victoria and Albert Museum was the first museum to introduce gas lighting through its gallery and the first house to have refreshment-ins. In 1899, Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of the new wing, and the museum was renamed on the commitment and support of Prince Albert.2.7 million treasures spanning over 5000 years. The collection is unrivalled in its richness and diversity and includes many things. Every country in the world is represented in Victoria and Albert Museum. The collection includes the finest collection from China, India, and the middle east.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has produced a popular and temporary exhibition of recent times, including Hollywood costumes, David bowie ears, and alexander McQueen’s savage beauty. Many of Victoria and Albert’s exhibitions taught of venues around the world. Some of Britain’s most successful designers used Victoria and Albert and its collection as inspiration. The museum was the first to establish a dedicated research department helping to develop and deepen its undertaken of its connection and to offer new ways to present the museum’s art library house more than 950000 books dedicated to the study of fine and decorative arts away from the main south Kensington site the Victoria and Albert Museum of childhood in the east London.
The attack damaged Victoria and Albert Museum during the second world war, and all the damage was kept it is as a tribute memorial. The first building that still forms a part of the museum was the sheepshanks gallery on the eastern side of the garden, designed by the civil engineer Francis Fowke, a royal engineer. The same architect did the next major expansion, the turner and Vernon galleries built in 1858-1859, then the north and south courts for temporary exhibition. The Secretariat wing is located on the very northern edge of the site; built-in 1862, it is the house of the offices and board room etc., and it is not open to the public.
The last work by Fowke was the design for the series of buildings on the north and west sides of the garden, and this comprises the refreshment rooms, reinstated as the Museum Cafe in 2006, with the silver gallery above, the top floor has a grand lecture theatre. However, this is occasionally open to the general public. F. W. Moody designed the staircase in the northwest corner of this variety of buildings; all the architectural details are shaped in moulded and coloured pottery. All the work on the north range was planned and built in 1864-1869. The style implemented for this part of the museum was Italian Renaissance; much use was made of terracotta, brick, and mosaic; this north facade was envisioned as the main entrance to the museum, with its bronze doors designed by James Gamble & Reuben Townroe having six panels depicting.
With the death of Francis Fowke, the following architect to work at the museum was Henry Young Darracott Scott. He designed the five-storey School for Naval Architects to the northwest of the garden, now the Henry Cole Wing, in 1867-1872. The main front, built from red brick and Portland stone, stretched 720 feet along Cromwell Gardens and was planned by Aston Webb after winning a competition in 1891 to extend the museum.
It was built of brick and ornamented with terracotta sculpture, imitating Italian Renaissance examples. The ‘sgraffito’ on the back of the structure – ornament complete of numerous layers of plaster and carved by students at the Art School that was once here.
The Exhibition Road Courtyard, the eclectic Aston Webb constructions draw on varied historical elegances, with sculpture in Portland stone. The constructions are named after the designer who also planned the facade of Buckingham Palace.
The buildings around the garden look united in style, but it took nearly 50 years to complete them. The structure to the east was constructed first in 1857 as a painting gallery. The garden started forming when a block was built opposite the west side in 1863, providing staff galleries and residences.
It was once the main way from the unique main entrance, opposite the public café, leading up to the Ceramics galleries and the attached schools of art and science that common the site.
Originally known as the ‘Architectural Courts’, these arcades were richly ornamented like the gallery’s other Victorian buildings to provide a suitable background for the architectural objects on exhibition. The V&A, including the cast of Michelangelo’s David, one of the most excellent inspiring to survive – many like holdings formed by other European museums have since been demolished. In 2018, the Cast Courts completed a wide-ranging restoration program to preserve their historic fabric.
Reference
https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/about-us
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/building-the-museum#slideshow=31131014&slide=0
https://architectuul.com/architecture/victoria-and-albert-museum
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/va-trail-architectural-wonders
https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/9168/Bomb-Damage-Victoria-and-Albert-Museum.htm
