London's V&A East Storage Warehouse is open for tours, becoming the second open warehouse in the world

The industrial-style open warehouse allows visitors to roam freely surrounded by cultural relic collections. (Photo by reporter Ling Meixue)

[Reporter Ling Meixue/London Report] Can you imagine that one day the 700,000 collections of the Forbidden City might be visited at the same time? Since the opening of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2021, "Open Storage" has become the most revolutionary topic in the museum world. After that, in May 2025, the brand-new East Storehouse of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London became the second open warehouse in the world and the most high-profile open warehouse today.

Minister of Culture Li Yuan (left) visits V&A Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Timothy Reeve. (Provided by the Ministry of Culture)

On the second day of his visit to the UK, Minister of Culture Li Yuan personally visited this innovative base that combines museums and storage spaces. He also met with Timothy Reeve CBE, deputy director and chief operating officer of the V&A, the initiator of the project, to learn from the Ministry of Culture's "Joint Collection Warehouse" project. Li Yuanyu told the media after the meeting that he was "very shocked" and believed that the creation of the V&A East Storage Repository "is a revolution in museums."

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The set for the historic premiere of Stravinsky's "The Firebird" in London is displayed in a dialogue with contemporary installations in a specially designated space in the warehouse. (Photo by reporter Ling Meixue)

The V&A East Storage Warehouse is located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It was originally a vast area created for the 2012 London Olympics. It was later built as a new cultural district under the "East Bank" project with the support of the Mayor of London. The V&A took over the Olympic Media Center. After 10 years of planning and design, it overcame the constant temperature, humidity and safety requirements of the storage warehouse and transformed it into the current open warehouse.

The building itself has four floors and an area of ​​16,000 square meters (equivalent to more than 30 basketball courts). It is the first of its kind in the world in terms of scale, volume or vision. It brings together more than 500,000 items from the V&A's collections from all over the world and spans a long time. In addition to its function as a collection warehouse, it also integrates academic research, restoration and other functions. Some of the collections even incorporate the concept of exhibition design.

The precious 17th-century Agra Colonnade in India finally has an opportunity to be displayed in an open warehouse after being in storage for more than 70 years. (Photo by reporter Ling Meixue)

Visiting the V&A East Storage Library can be said to be a brand new cultural experience. Li Yuan believes that unlike traditional museums where too many collections have no chance to be displayed, the East Storage Library is like a backstage pass issued by the museum. The extremely versatile space design allows people to enter human civilizations from different eras and regions at the closest distance. What is even more commendable is that the museum believes that people can respect culture, and in fact allows all visitors to learn to cherish these human civilizations, and at the same time practices the value of cultural equality.

Li Yuan also mentioned that the Ministry of Culture is currently planning to use the university building in Taiwan's capital to transform into the Ministry of Culture's "Joint Collection Warehouse", hoping to find a way for the museum to relieve the pressure on collection space. The space utilization of the V&A East Storage Warehouse and the successful model of comprehensive opening to the outside world provide an opportunity to rethink.

The open warehouse allows the public to view the collection at the closest distance. (Photo by reporter Ling Meixue)

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