The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is in Kensington in West London. At least, its original and main site is. It has others. The newest (I believe) is in the Olympic Park, over in East London, quite near me. They call it the V&A East Storehouse, and it’s in a building that I think was the broadcast centre in 2012, and afterwards was a shared-use office-for-hire sort of place, I believe.

I guess that business must have dried up, because the museum takes up the entirety of the building now, from what I can tell. And it’s a really intriguing way of presenting parts of their vast collection. It’s a bit like an Ikea warehouse. On tall shelves, over three floors, items are arranged in seemingly random order and mostly without grouping, and minimal information. There’s a web site and QR codes so you can look things up, at least as to a title, description, and date.

I like this way of seeing a museum’s collection. The randomness leads to interesting juxtapositions: you might get a 14th century mahogany chest next to a 1960s electric guitar; a Piaggio scooter, decorated by a modern artist, sits with ancient pottery, and so on.

There’s a good article about it at Visit London, with photos that give a flavour of it.

Our main reason for going there was the permanent collection of David Bowie’s archive. Only a tiny fraction of his huge collection is on display, but it’s worth a look. Mostly photographs and letters and such, and some costumes and the odd guitar or synthesiser.

My favourite thing was a rejection letter Bowie received in 1968, saying he wasn’t quite right for the label. Which was Apple Records! Can you imagine what it would have been like if Bowie had joined the Beatles’ label?