Surfacing Stories in the V+A and RIBA Architecture Gallery
Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner, Senior Curator, Architecture and Design, V&A
When preparation for the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) + Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Architecture Gallery was underway about 25 years ago, external consultation was carried out with a variety of different audiences to determine which architectural subjects potential visitors wanted to see represented in what was then the UK’s first permanent architecture gallery. The result was a display focused on four themes: design process; architectural style; building typologies; and materials. Within those areas, objects from the V&A, RIBA, other collections and architectural practices were selected to demonstrate how buildings are designed, the major styles and their associations from the classical world to post-modernism, principal genres of building and how materials can be employed for different purposes.
Since its opening in 2004, hundreds of thousands of visitors have enjoyed the permanent gallery. Nevertheless, there have been changes within and without the museum’s walls that make a reconsideration of the gallery’s approach and content timely.
A view of ‘Surfacing Stories’ created with the ‘critical friends’ of the Architecture Gallery © Olivia Horsfall Turner 2023
One shift is that museum interpretation has moved from delivering information to narrating stories.
Even if the contemporary visitor wants to learn, they don’t particularly want to feel as though they are being taught. Rather than reading labels that are essentially large-print catalogue entries, museum-goers want to hear stories, engage with experiences and participate in conversations.
Furthermore, although visitors are often keen to expand their historical knowledge, they also want to find the issues that are relevant to their contemporary concerns reflected in what they see. Discussions about inequalities have prompted widespread interest in how gender, race and identity has been - and continues to be - inscribed into the built environment. Awareness of how a majority outlook can marginalise minority groups has led to questions about how to ensure diverse experiences can be reflected architecturally. Engagement with Britain’s imperial legacies has spurred enquiry into how colonialism has expressed itself in built form, and the manifest reality of global warming is driving curiosity about how building design and materials can mitigate the climate crisis.
Musing on new perspectives has been a key part of the conversation for the gallery’s next phase © Olivia Horsfall Turner 2023
Against this backdrop, and aware that the gallery will fall due for renewal in the near future, curators have begun to think about how a revamped Architecture Gallery might respond to this new landscape. We were therefore pleased when Elizabeth Darling, now Chair of the SAHGB, approached us while she was convenor of the SAHGB’s Women’s Architectural Historians Network, with a proposal to explore alternative narratives in the existing gallery. Together we created a project around the Architecture Gallery that would begin to interrogate its current limitations, as a pilot for its eventual transformation.
The product of this collaboration is Surfacing Stories - the current intervention which was installed in June 2023 for the London Festival of Architecture and which will also form part of London Design Festival in September.
We invited twelve activists, architects, historians and writers to be critical friends of the Architecture Gallery. Through a series of workshops and discussions, contributors selected objects on display for reinterpretation then researched and wrote additional labels.
The resulting installation is thought-provoking: architect Sarah Akigbogun writes about the absence of Africa in the gallery, Hiba Alobaydi, architectural researcher and editor, questions Western ideas about Islamic architecture, architectural historian Elizabeth Darling explores matriarchy in Indonesia, and architectural designer Teshome Douglas-Campbell considers the impact of appropriation on the meaning of objects. Holly James Johnston, writer and performer, meditates on queer aesthetics, while academic Jessica Kelly exposes how private funds underpin public-facing projects. Author Alim Kheraj plots the intersection of public space and sexuality, Claire Madge, founder of Autism in Museums, questions why the default scale figure continues to depict an able male body, and Laura Searson, Cultural Heritage Preservation Lead at the V&A urges the use of historical materials for contemporary problems. Neal Shasore, Head of School and Chief Executive at the London School of Architecture ponders the representation of colonialism, Manijeh Verghese, Head of Public Engagement at the Architectural Association probes provenance, and architectural researcher Jordan Whitewood-Neal, highlights how language can be embedded with prejudice.
One of the challenges of the museum object label is the restriction of around 80 words
Image © Olivia Horsfall Turner 2023
Whether it sits in a museum or on your mantelpiece, a single object can be used to tell multiple stories.
But some stories have been told more readily than others. Certain viewpoints have been prioritised while others have been ignored, marginalised or even written out of history altogether. All the participants in Surfacing Stories address these issues head on, challenging the status quo and offering new paths for the future. As they discovered, one of the challenges of the museum object label is the word limit – around only 80 words. Such a restriction means that beyond introducing the most basic aspects of an object, there is really only room to make one point. It surely becomes all the more important, therefore, what that point is.
Surfacing Stories was led by Elizabeth Darling in collaboration with the V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership. It was supported by the RIBA and funded thanks to the generosity of Donald and Nancy Notley. The project was also supported by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund, Oxford Brookes University.
Visit Surfacing Stories in the V&A + RIBA Architecture Gallery until Sunday 24 September 2023:
A panel discussion about representing diverse narratives will take place on Monday 18 September 2023 [link not yet available]
A participatory workshop where visitors can contribute their own interpretations will run as part of the Friday Lates on Friday 22 September 2023:
Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner
Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner FSA is Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the V&A, and the V&A’s lead curator for the V&A+RIBA Architecture Partnership. At the V&A she looks after the collection of design drawings and models which document the creative process from the fourteenth century to the present day. She has written, broadcast and curated exhibitions about architecture from the medieval to the modern. Her most recent publication is Owen Jones and the V&A: Ornament for a Modern Age (Lund Humphries, 2023). A former SAHGB Conference Secretary and committee member, she is now a member of the President’s Council.