Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

An inviting new entrance to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum

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The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is literally presenting a new side of itself to the public: Visitors can now enter the 165-year-old museum beneath colonnades which until now were partially walled-off.


They then can spend some time in a light-filled interior courtyard before it’s on to the generous-sized lobby and down an elegant wooden stairway to a new, 1,100-square-metre underground gallery.


Catherine, the duchess of Cambridge, recently opened the largest architectural project on the museum in more than 100 years, kicking off a week-long festival to mark the occasion. The first large exhibition is set to be opened in the new halls later this year.


The construction project cost some 50 million pounds (65 million dollars) and was financed largely through private donations and lottery revenues.


For the first time since the colonnades were built in 1909, visitors can now enter the interior courtyard directly from the street.


The new, column-free Sainsbury Gallery going some 18 metres below ground is to be the venue for temporary exhibitions. The cafe in the bright interior courtyard, with its floor of hand-made porcelain tiles, invites visitors to relax for a while.


“We wanted to create a meeting place between the museum and the street,” noted Victoria and Albert director Tristram Hunt.


With the new entrance on Exhibition Road, the Victoria and Albert positions itself right in the heart of the museum district of South Kensington. The entrance not only creates a “deep connection” with the neighbouring museums, it also realizes the vision of Prince Albert to make the museums in the area into a kind of campus accessible to all.


The museum was designed by Prince Albert during the heyday of the British Empire under Queen Victoria in the 19th century and eventually went down in the annals as “Albertopolis.”


Star architect Amanda Levete, who oversaw the work, calls it an urban planning project for the 21st century which brings people and museum together.


The Victoria and Albert, which last year was named as Museum of the Year by the British art charity Art Fund, hopes the modernisation will boost visitor numbers, currently at about 3 million per year. — dpa


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