INTERVIEW What does it mean to design child-centered museum?
Installation view of Imagine gallery at Young V&A in London, the new satellite of the Victoria and Albert Museum designed with and for children / Courtesy of Victoria and Albert
Museum, London
On a bright morning on July 1, crowds of families gathered in front of a two-story vermilion Victorian building in East London’s Bethnal Green.
With only 10 seconds left until the clock struck 10, an excited chorus of children’s voices erupted and soon, a collective countdown began.
No, the kids weren’t jumping up and down in anticipation of a space shuttle liftoff. Instead, their shrieks of excitement signaled the opening of Young V&A — the new satellite of the Victoria and Albert Museum “designed with and for” children up to 14-year-olds.
Installation view of Play gallery at Young V&A / Courtesy of Victoria and Albert
Museum, London
Young V&A is a rebranded version of what was formerly the Museum of Childhood. But it’s not just the name that has changed, of course.
The old museum was known for preserving the material history and culture of childhood, presenting an extensive collection of toys, dollhouses and games securely enclosed in vitrines, out of reach from curious hands. This offered parents and antiques enthusiasts plenty of chances to indulge in nostalgia for their cherished playthings, but was it really a place for the kids?
In fact, when the V&A team consulted with children and asked what they thought about museums, the majority replied with the word “boring.”
“Museums weren’t really designed in ways that were inspiring and relevant for them,” said Young V&A Director Helen Charman in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
The director’s visit to Korea coincided with the workshop hosted at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju from Dec. 5 to 7, which invited members of the V&A’s learning team to discuss the various facets and social contexts of today’s museum education with industry professionals across Korea.
Helen Charman, director of Young V&A and the V&A's learning and national programs, gives a presentation during the "ACC x V&A Global Experts Workshop I (Museum and Art Education)," a three-day workshop held at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju from Dec. 5 to 7. The event invited members of the V&A’s learning team to discuss the various facets and social contexts of today’s creative museum education with industry professionals across Korea by examining case studies and methodologies of the London museum. Courtesy of Asia Culture Center
At the heart of Young V&A’s three-year, 13 million-pound ($16 million) makeover was its close collaboration with the local children themselves.
“It was important to take a co-design approach for us, because that was the way that we could make a very strong commitment to and statement about the importance of children’s voices and creative agency,” Charman noted.
Over 22,000 schoolchildren, teachers, parents and special education specialists helped shape the building’s new design.
So, what did the young audience want the most? Spaces where they were free to be big, loud and exuberant! In other words, they wanted “the most joyful museum in the world.”
“This was a wonderful design brief for us — to create a museum for joy, where learning would still happen but in a playful way,” the director added.
A child runs across a skylighted central atrium, dubbed the "Town Square," at Young V&A. Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The architectural design of a spiral staircase encircling a gigantic kaleidoscopic mirror inside the central atrium of Young V&A is inspired by the museum's optical toy collection. Courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Their spirited ideas, along with their penchant for light, color and pattern, are evident throughout the museum — a skylighted central atrium that allows for running freely on foot and even on mini-scooters, a spiral staircase encircling a gigantic kaleidoscopic mirror, a crimson velvet stage open for all and an electric bubble car suspended from the roof as if it’s flying into the building, to name but a few.
Nestled within these imaginative architectural features are three new galleries — Play, Imagine and Design — each targeting different age groups from toddlers to young teens.
The interactive displays, designed for sensory and experiential engagement, highlight the museum’s exhibited collection in an uplifting manner.
The Play gallery, for example, allows prewalkers to experience the texture of articles in the collection — without actually touching the objects — by creating a tactile environment that mirrors the items’ materials, such as smooth marble for a 19th-century bust and fuzzy synthetic grass for Prada’s mohair top.
And what about a cupboard filled with instruments and objects that produce sounds related to paintings, posters and sculptures gracing the gallery?
The list goes on with a build-your-own-board game table, self-portrait-making stations, a den-building zone, a Minecraft interactive that transports visitors to the virtual Young V&A and the iconic dollhouse collection reinstalled as a streetscape.
The Play gallery at Young V&A allows prewalkers to experience the texture of artifacts in the museum's collection by creating s tactile environment that mirrors the items’ materials. Courtesy of Victoria and Albert
Museum, London
“Young V&A is a ‘doing’ museum, so in addition to looking, it’s also about engaging the whole body,” Charman said.
But it would be wrong to assume that the museum is simply an over-stimulating playground plastered with sensory glitz.
In fact, what makes this child-centered institution stand out is the breadth of the collection on display, which includes both the colorful childhood relics and acclaimed historic works from the V&A’s trove.
This means that items like vintage teddy bears and Harry Potter’s Nimbus 2000 broomstick share space with a 3,100-year-old Egyptian ceramic dish, a 19th-century Japanese woodblock print of Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” as well as the works of contemporary masters like Keith Haring and David Hockney.
“I think it’s amazing for children to come to a museum where they can engage with established artists in environments designed for them,” she noted.
In just three months since its reopening, Young V&A attracted over 200,000 visitors — including those who would hide in the museum's bathroom because they didn't want to go home, as Charman fondly recalled.
A child views artist Rachel Whiteread’s "Place (Village)," an installation of over 100 dollhouses, at Young V&A. Courtesy of Victoria
and Albert Museum, London
Museum sector’s shift toward inclusivity, accessibility
The launch of Young V&A reflects the broader trend in the museum sector toward greater inclusivity and accessibility.
More and more museums worldwide are rethinking their social roles in the 21st century, prompted, in part, by the COVID-10 pandemic. While the pandemic exacerbated preexisting social inequalities, it also compelled cultural institutions to reach broader audiences through previously underexplored virtual means.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) now defines museums as “open to the public, accessible and inclusive,” emphasizing equality and inclusion as core values.
“For Young V&A, this was absolutely essential because of the way that children learn,” Charman said. “From birth to 14, there are so many changes that happen in the child. We had to be able to design programs and spaces to meet all those different needs — physical, emotional and intellectual.”
Inclusivity also addresses socioeconomic factors.
Young V&A is situated in London’s borough of Tower Hamlets, which has the highest rate of child poverty in the U.K. at over 51 percent in 2020-21. Its geographical location and demographic context made it critical for the museum to ponder how it can be meaningful as a free community resource for local families who might not have the means to travel to other larger national counterparts in the country.
“We made the commitment that we would work with every school in the borough and reach out to the children to help them understand that this was their museum,” she added.
An electric bubble car is suspended from the roof of Young V&A. It's an installation inspired by children's suggestion of having a flying car inside the museum. Courtesy of Victoria
and Albert Museum, London
The drive to foster an inclusive culture for children in public institutions can hold particular significance in Korea – the country that, despite suffering from the world’s lowest fertility rate, is seeing an exponential increase in the number of private and public facilities designated as “no-kids zones” to maintain “disturbance-free” environments.
“If we want children to have a sense of agency in both their own lives and civic lives, then access to spaces that actively welcome them and are designed to meet the way that they engage with the world are absolutely essential,” the director said.
Young V&A's transformation into a child-centric haven demonstrates the importance of such spaces in shaping the next generation's cultural identity.
“Investing in cultural spaces for Gen Alpha (those born between early 2010s and mid-2020s) and building their cultural confidence is really important, because creativity comes from being exposed to other creative people and art forms. It's a way of developing our humanity,” she added. “According to the Reggio-Emilia approach, the environment is the third teacher (after parents and teachers)... These spaces have a critical role to play in the development of the next generation.”