The V&A's buildings have always been meant to be examples of the best modern architecture and design. They were to stand alone as a piece of art, supporting the Museum's and national art library goal to inform and uplift its visitors. This attitude has persisted to produce the incredibly diverse collection of structures we see today. Each one now stands for a particular period in British design history and decorative arts as well as a chapter in Victoria & Albert Museum history.

The Prolonged Development

The Victoria and Albert Museum was established with the goal of educating the general public about art and design as well as manufacturers and designers by permanent collection. Its roots can be seen in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first global exhibition of design and production in albert museum london. Prince Albert, the Exhibition's creator and champion, realized that maintaining and raising British industry standards with foundation stone was essential if the country was to remain competitive in the global market. In order to do this, he proposed that the exhibition's earnings be put toward creating a South Kensington cultural district with museums and universities committed to the teaching of art and science as well as fine and decorative arts.

The earliest of these establishments was The Museum. It was established in 1852, and in 1857 it relocated to its present location on Exhibition Road together with museum's collections. The South Kensington Museum, which had been in operation for more than 40 years, was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert to recognize his contribution to its founding.

Greater Exhibition of the Victoria & Albert Museum history

Londoners were treated to a display of industry and development in 1851. The Great Show, the first-ever global exhibition of its sort, featured an impressive display of produced goods in the science museum from steam engines to a wide variety of exotic items from Britain and its empire. The displays were temporarily housed in a "Crystal Palace" in Hyde Park, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert oversaw the official opening. Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens were among the six million visitors who, at the time of its closure, represented a third of the British population in british galleries.

A young civil officer by the name of Henry Cole was among the brains behind the Great Exhibition. He convinced Prince Albert that an international exhibition in London would inform the public and stimulate British designers and manufacturers after visiting comparable national exhibits in Paris. Following the enormously popular Exhibition, a number of items were purchased with a Treasury grant of £5,000 to serve as the foundation of the new Museum of Manufactures, which debuted in 1852. The V&A was intended to be created in this form. Henry Cole was its director, to be precise.

Both the "Chamber of Horrors" and good design

The Museum of Manufactures was housed in Marlborough House, a royal mansion made accessible by Prince Albert in Pall Mall, London. The Government School of Design, which was established in 1837 in Somerset House and moved to Marlborough House in 1852, was another school under Cole's control that provided design education. The new Museum of Manufactures now includes a collection of ornamental art pieces and plaster castings that the School had put together for educational reasons. Henry Cole claimed that the Museum should be a "schoolroom for everyone" while serving as director. Therefore, one of the Museum's founding ideals was to educate the general public on all topics related to good design. And Cole reasoned that what better way to show "proper" design and excellent taste than to present a presentation of everything that ought to be perceived as its opposite?

The Increased Popularity

Visitors were also given access to a Gallery of False Principles in addition to exhibits of exceptional furniture, pottery, textiles, glass, and metalwork that he thought would spur public desire for "improvements in the character of our national products. This exhibit of "bad" design, which the media dubbed a "Chamber of Horrors," assaulted visitors with a variety of what was deemed "utterly indefensible" commonplace decorative items that didn't adhere to the standards of design that were being developed and promoted by Cole and his fellow design reformers.

All over-the-top objects with excessive ornamentation and any objects whose choice of materials or ornament seemed irrational were particularly disliked, as were fabrics and wallpapers with naturalistic depictions of greenery and flowers. These exhibitions' shortcomings were noted in the gallery labels, and they were shown next to comparable items that were deemed successful and accurate. Regardless of how immoral the design of an item might have been, it was all commercially very successful when it was chosen for the exhibition.

People's Admiration

The public was only amused by the choice but did not change their minds. The producers of the criticized products were humiliated and promptly complained. After just two weeks, the exhibition was over. Only 17 of the 87 items that were first shown at the False Principles Gallery have been located in our collections. One issue was that none of the items appear to have received a museum number when they were transferred from Marlborough House to South Kensington; it almost seemed as though they didn't belong in the collection in the first place.

New museum of South Kensington

By 1854, the Museum of Manufactures outgrew Marlborough House, which would be given up for the Prince of Wales' home (later Edward VII). Henry Cole asked Prince Albert about building a permanent museum in the new cultural zone he was constructing near the Crystal Palace. The Prince's Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 utilized the Great Exhibition's revenues to buy an 86-acre estate. Cole recommended renaming Brompton as aristocratic-sounding South Kensington.

The Inside Of the Museum

The Prince wanted to combine exhibitions, educational institutions, and schools in "Albertopolis." Brompton Park House and its grounds were in the southeast part of the land, which became the new Museum. Due to a shortage of finance, the original structure for the new Museum in 1856-7 was a temporary iron construction measuring 81 meters by 9 meters and fitting three two-storey galleries. The Builder, the top architectural journal of the day, criticized the new structure, saying "its ugliness is unmitigated."

The museum is known as the "Brompton Boilers" because the journal said it resembled "a threefold monstrous boiler." Captain Francis Fowke, a military engineer described by Cole as "almost a genius," oversaw the Museum's modifications. The Sheepshanks Gallery was established to hold a Leeds industrialist's art collection. From the "Boilers" north. Much modern technology was incorporated into the Sheepshanks gallery, including gas lighting that enabled it to remain open late throughout the winter. Cole praised how easy it was for working guys to access art. Evening museum hours might save the gin palace.