Ceilings will be raised and light allowed into Europe 1600-1800 rooms in £12.5m redesign at London museum
They contain some of the objects most full of joie de vivre in the V&A's vast collection, yet the baroque and rococo galleries themselves have for decades been dingy, dark and disorientating. A typical label might have said no more than: "Cabinet. Dresden. 1760."
By the end of 2014 the spaces will be transformed: light will stream in, ceilings will be raised and a far more immersive and coherent story will be told, the museum said on Wednesday. It revealed details of its £12.5m redesign plans for its Europe 1600-1800 galleries, due to be opened by December 2014.
"We are all talking about the future of Europe and the crisis of Europe and what Europe means," said the museum's director, Martin Roth. "I think it is the right time to talk about the history and culture of Europe, if there is something like one culture of Europe."
The transformation of the galleries is part of the V&A's ongoing FuturePlan programme across the 12.5-acre site in South Kensington. Europe 1600-1800 is one of more than 50 building projects, but a very important one, said the director of design, Moira Gemmill. "This is a significant project for us … it's huge. It's a whole wing of the museum."
It comes around two thirds in to the FuturePlan as a whole and follows the dramatic changes to galleries including medieval and Renaissance, ceramics and theatre. "It has taken 14 years and it will take another 10 years to complete [FuturePlan] and by that time we'll have to go back and start all over again," said Gemmill.
The seven redesigned galleries, to the left of the museum's main entrance, will show more than 1,100 objects. "Some of them will never have been seen before," said the lead curator Lesley Miller. "All of them are incredibly impressive and are some of the most extravagant objects in the museum's collections."
They will tell the story of how France, under Louis XIV, became the European leader of fashionable art and design and how European countries for the first time "systematically explored, exploited and collected resources from around the world", said Miller.
It will also "underline very clearly that the legacy of this period is with us today", she said. We shop, for example, we take tea and cake and we buy the latest fashions.
One highlight in the new galleries will be the reconstruction of a four-metre-long porcelain table fountain which had been with the V&A since 1870, albeit in 150 broken pieces. The fountain, turned on during dessert at lavish dinner parties hosted by Heinrich von Brühl, the extravagant prime minister of the Saxon court, depicts Neptune and Amphitrite being drawn on a shell-chariot by hippocamps.
There will be tapestries, textiles, garments, furniture and works of art as well the recreation of three period rooms all illuminating a period in mainland Europe's history that is becoming less well-known because it is no longer taught in UK schools.
The redesign by the architects ZMMA involves undoing much of the work done in the 1960s and 1970s, when windows were obscured and ceilings lowered. Fortunately, original features were covered up rather than removed, allowing galleries to be restored to former glories with around 500 sq metres of extra space being freed up.
The announcement came as the V&A announced record figures of more than 3.29 million visitors in 2013 – more than a million more than 10 years ago and 2 million more than the year free admission was introduced in 2001. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
They contain some of the objects most full of joie de vivre in the V&A's vast collection, yet the baroque and rococo galleries themselves have for decades been dingy, dark and disorientating. A typical label might have said no more than: "Cabinet. Dresden. 1760."
By the end of 2014 the spaces will be transformed: light will stream in, ceilings will be raised and a far more immersive and coherent story will be told, the museum said on Wednesday. It revealed details of its £12.5m redesign plans for its Europe 1600-1800 galleries, due to be opened by December 2014.
"We are all talking about the future of Europe and the crisis of Europe and what Europe means," said the museum's director, Martin Roth. "I think it is the right time to talk about the history and culture of Europe, if there is something like one culture of Europe."
The transformation of the galleries is part of the V&A's ongoing FuturePlan programme across the 12.5-acre site in South Kensington. Europe 1600-1800 is one of more than 50 building projects, but a very important one, said the director of design, Moira Gemmill. "This is a significant project for us … it's huge. It's a whole wing of the museum."
It comes around two thirds in to the FuturePlan as a whole and follows the dramatic changes to galleries including medieval and Renaissance, ceramics and theatre. "It has taken 14 years and it will take another 10 years to complete [FuturePlan] and by that time we'll have to go back and start all over again," said Gemmill.
The seven redesigned galleries, to the left of the museum's main entrance, will show more than 1,100 objects. "Some of them will never have been seen before," said the lead curator Lesley Miller. "All of them are incredibly impressive and are some of the most extravagant objects in the museum's collections."
They will tell the story of how France, under Louis XIV, became the European leader of fashionable art and design and how European countries for the first time "systematically explored, exploited and collected resources from around the world", said Miller.
It will also "underline very clearly that the legacy of this period is with us today", she said. We shop, for example, we take tea and cake and we buy the latest fashions.
One highlight in the new galleries will be the reconstruction of a four-metre-long porcelain table fountain which had been with the V&A since 1870, albeit in 150 broken pieces. The fountain, turned on during dessert at lavish dinner parties hosted by Heinrich von Brühl, the extravagant prime minister of the Saxon court, depicts Neptune and Amphitrite being drawn on a shell-chariot by hippocamps.
There will be tapestries, textiles, garments, furniture and works of art as well the recreation of three period rooms all illuminating a period in mainland Europe's history that is becoming less well-known because it is no longer taught in UK schools.
The redesign by the architects ZMMA involves undoing much of the work done in the 1960s and 1970s, when windows were obscured and ceilings lowered. Fortunately, original features were covered up rather than removed, allowing galleries to be restored to former glories with around 500 sq metres of extra space being freed up.
The announcement came as the V&A announced record figures of more than 3.29 million visitors in 2013 – more than a million more than 10 years ago and 2 million more than the year free admission was introduced in 2001. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.