Albertopolis Walking Tour: transcript - Royal Institute of British ...

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were possibly influenced in their choice of decoration by the University Museum, Oxford, by Deane & Woodward, which Waterhouse visited in 1858. All of the decoration and the whole façade facing are carried out in terracotta. Waterhouse chose this relatively new material since it could mass produce cheap, durable, and washable ornament. The overall result of the façade is reminiscent of both a cathedral front and a medieval market hall. The building is entered via a magisterial staircase and cathedral like portal, a theme which is continued in the grand entrance hall which resembles a large church nave. The interior of the museum is equally as decorative and beautiful as its exterior and is well worth exploring, even if you’re not interested in dinosaurs! Continue to walk eastwards along Cromwell Road towards the main entrance to the V&A. Pause the recording 21. Victoria and Albert Museum 47.22mins Before you is the world renowned Victoria and Albert Museum, however the museum began its life under a different name and in a different location. The first seed of what was to become the South Kensington Museum, and later the V&A, was the founding of the Government School of Design, established in Somerset House in 1837. The Department of Practical Art followed in 1852 with the associated Museum of Manufactures set up in Marlborough House, which included objects purchased from the Great Exhibition. Aerial photograph of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2002 Copyright: English Heritage. NMR The result was the first public institution to offer education in design, with the objective to make works of art available to all, and to inspire contemporary design. Both the department and museum were renamed in 1853, and in 1857 they moved to the site before you. Henry Cole became the museum’s first director, and it was he who coined the name South Kensington for both the area and the museum. The South Kensington Museum opened in the summer of 1857 to the north east of where you are standing, in a temporary iron building which earned the derogatory nickname the ‘Brompton Boilers.’ Cole quickly employed the engineer Captain Francis Fowke to design new permanent buildings for the museum collections. The Brompton Boilers was dismantled in 1864 and partially re-erected at Bethnal Green for a new museum, now the Museum of Childhood. 22
Fowke remained the architect for the South Kensington Museum until his death in 1865, when his work was taken over by another engineer, Major Henry Scott, also architect for the Albert Hall. The last building to be erected following Fowke and Scott’s plans for the museum was the National Art Library, opening in 1884. No further building work was proposed until a competition was launched in 1891 to complete the Museum towards the Cromwell Road. Up until then the museum lay further to the north than where are standing. The winner of the 1891 competition was the architect Aston Webb, and it’s this building and entrance front that you see before you on the Cromwell Road. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the building in 1899 and at this ceremony that she renamed the institution the Victoria and Albert Museum. Now enter the V&A by the main entrance and head for the museum restaurant. To reach your well earned cup of tea, and the last location for the Walking Tour, walk straight through the museum, passing directly through the museum entrance, shop and Madejski Gardens, to enter the museum’s Refreshment Rooms, the world’s first museum public restaurant, located in the north wing of the Museum Quadrangle. Pause the recording 22. Refreshment Rooms, V&A 50.10mins To reach this part of the V&A you have passed through some of the oldest parts of the institution, including the Museum Quadrangle, now the Madejski Gardens, which encompasses to east or right hand side, the former Sheepshanks Gallery, the oldest surviving original gallery of the South Kensington Museum; and to the north, the Lecture Theatre Block by Francis Fowke. On the ground floor of the Lecture Theatre Block are the museum’s Refreshment Rooms, the oldest museum public restaurant in the Gamble Room of the V&A Refreshments Rooms, 2006 Copyright: V&A Images world, opening in 1857. It consists of a suite of three rooms, the central one of which is the Gamble Room. This incredibly grand and opulent space has a semi-circular northern side, following the plan of the Lecture Theatre which sits directly above it. At the back of this are stained glass windows intended to hide the kitchens behind. 23
Page 1 and 2: Albertopolis Walking Tour: transcri
Page 3 and 4: 2. Henry Cole Wing of V&A 1.27mins
Page 5 and 6: Kensington. This Art Deco building
Page 7 and 8: character.” This was a new style
Page 9 and 10: Underneath the memorial is a large
Page 11 and 12: name change followed in 1863, befor
Page 13 and 14: 11. Holy Trinity Church, Prince Con
Page 15 and 16: the south side of Blomfield’s bui
Page 17 and 18: 16. Queen’s Tower, Imperial Insti
Page 19 and 20: However, it doesn’t have the very
Page 21: Continue to walk down Queen’s Gat

Albertopolis Walking Tour: transcript - Royal Institute of British ...

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