The Duchess of Cambridge Will Open The New V&A Exhibition Road Quarter
London
Thursday 29th June, 2017
The Duchess of Cambridge will visit the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) on Thursday 29th June to officially open the Museum’s new entrance, courtyard and exhibition gallery on Exhibition Road.
The V&A Exhibition Road Quarter is the V&A’s largest architectural project in the last 100 years, designed by British architect Amanda Levete and her practice AL_A. The project has created new public areas and gallery space for London, transforming the experience of the V&A for visitors, and revealing the historic facades of the Museum’s existing Grade I buildings for the first time. A new public entrance to the V&A has been created on Exhibition Road, reconnecting the V&A with its neighbouring museums and institutions founded on the vision of Albertopolis, following the Great Exhibition of 1851. The new entrance leads visitors through the historic Aston Webb Screen into the world’s first porcelain tiled courtyard, which floats above a new column-free gallery that will host the V&A’s world-class exhibition programme.
The Duchess will tour the V&A Exhibition Road Quarter’s new spaces, and hear about the design and unique features of the building. During the tour Her Royal Highness will visit The Sackler Courtyard – the world’s first porcelain tiled public courtyard – The Blavatnik Hall, the V&A’s new entrance and The Sainsbury Gallery. The Sainsbury Gallery will host temporary site-specific installations for the opening, including immersive sound and light works by artist Simon Heijdens and viol player Liam Byrne, as well as industrial designer Jonathan Olivares’ Aluminium Bench, a twelve-metre long bench which curves throughout the space.
The Duchess will then attend a short reception in The Blavatnik Hall to meet guests involved in the project’s delivery, before unveiling a commemorative plaque in The Sackler Courtyard to officially mark the opening of the V&A Exhibition Road Quarter.
The Duchess’s visit precedes REVEAL, a free, week-long public festival running from 30th June celebrating the opening of the new entrance. To celebrate these new spaces, the V&A will be inviting the public to explore the V&A Exhibition Road Quarter’s unique combination of heritage, modernity and technology with a series of events that bring the architecture and collections to life.
For more information visit: www.vam.ac.uk
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