V&A East Storehouse to open this weekend – with a ‘huge trove’ of treasures to comb through

The Weston Collections Hall. Image: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

The V&A is soon to open its doors to a vast new space in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The V&A East Storehouse is where the museum will keep items not currently on display in its other locations.

Now you can rummage through the iconic institution’s huge trove of artifacts and feast your eyes.

Spread out across 16,000m2 on four floors of metal shelving, the collection of over 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives has few evident ordering principles.

A clutch of mid-20th-century radios sits not far from a stand of ancient Asian carvings alongside fancy Georgian tables.

A teddy bear nestles near a tutu, while elaborate antique wall tiles look down on modern home furnishings.

The hall features over 100 mini curated displays. Image: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

The shelving is arranged along aisles that join at a central space where visitors wander.

At the inward-facing end of each aisle, pieces of particular note are mounted on plywood platforms and plinths, with explanatory placards.

If you make an appointment in advance, you can even order up a particular article for closer inspection.

Some of the works are of dubious provenance, which the V&A is not shy in acknowledging.

A series of looted stelae (stone markers) from Yemen are installed with a sign indicating that they are here under temporary protection while their home country is in a state of conflict.

There are in addition a number of more traditional displays such as the corner devoted to memories and relics of the recently-demolished Robin Hood Gardens Estate in Poplar, as well as a glorious 15 th century Spanish ceiling that combines Islamic and Christian motifs, and the world’s largest Picasso, the Ballets Russes Le Train Bleu theatre stage cloth which is over 10 metres high and 11 metres wide.

Taste of home: the e5 Bakehouse cafe. Image: Kemka Ajoku for V&A

East Storehouse is also very much a workplace. Visitors can stand in the Conservation Overlook and peer down on staff restoring pieces in their studio below, while an accompanying video explains techniques.

There is perhaps no other place where you can see such an eclectic smorgasbord of objects ranging from burial caskets to bonnets, corsets to candelabras, motorcycles to mythic figurines.

The sheer volume of this incongruous mish-mash means that sensory overload is a distinct danger; you are in for several dozen cultural experiences jumbled together at once.

But when you are all drained out by the heady mix, there is an on-site e5 Bakehouse café to make you feel right back at home in Hackney.

V&A East Storehouse opens on 31 May at Parkes Street, E20 3AX.

For more information, visit vam.ac.uk/east.