V&A: London Design Festival 2015
The Victoria & Albert Museum is always a hub of activity during the Design Festival where you'll find extraordinary installations nestled throughout this west London venue. We've rounded up the best bits to sink your teeth into.
Step inside the V&A and you'll be met by the enormous glittering Swarovski sculpture riddled with 600 crystals by Norwegian designer Kim Thomé. This stunning work built from black aluminium, entitled Zotem, is designed to encourage visitors to stray into the ceramics galleries upstairs, Thomé's favourite part of the museum.
Frida Escobedo London installation
The jewel in the crown at the V&A is the gorgeous summer pavilion You Know, You Cannot See Yourself So Well as by Reflection, designed this year by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, best known for her bold designs that celebrate raw materials and splashes of hot colour. Rather than a conventional pavilion, Escobedo has created a series of mirrored platforms which feel more like an ancient Aztec temple than a central London courtyard.
Curiosity Cloud
In the V&A's Norfolk House Music Room you'll find the Perrier-Jouët London Design Festival Curiosity Cloud designed by award-winning Austrian team mischer'traxler. This intriguing creation is made up for 250 mouth-blown glass globes, each shimmering with an individual hand-fabricated insect inside which glows and sparks as they touch the glass. As the audience interacts with the installation, so the volume gets turned up on these frantic insects to eventually create a cacophony of sound.
The Ogham Wall art installation
2015 is all about Irish Design at the V&A following a year-long initiative with the London museum and the Irish government. The Ogham Wall by Stirling Prize nominees Grafton Architects translates the ancient Irish Ogham alphabet into a curious three metre high structure of concrete 'fins' in the V&A Tapestry Gallery. This innovative installation uses individual patterns etched onto concrete to suggest the texture of a sacred tree.
Tower of Babel | V&A
Don't miss ceramic artist Barnbary Barford's enormous Tower of Babel, made of 3000 bone china façades each with a different photograph of London shops. From the rundown and derelict to the exclusive and chic, this playful biblical tower reaches up to touch the ceiling of the V&A Medieval & Renaissance Galleries.
Across the way you'll also find Laetitia de Allegri & Matteo Fogale collaboration with Johnson Tiles: a colourful bridge inspired by the famous V&A collection of stained glass.
Robin Day London show
But the real highlight for serious interior design lovers is the V&A exhibition celebrating the centenary of radical post-war British furniture designer Robin Day. We recommend a visit to the fantastic wooden installation by the Turner Prize nominated design and architecture collective, Assemble, inspired by Day's sleek simplicity and love for timber in his famous industrial designs. If you are a fan you'll also enjoy the spectacular contemporary re-imagining of the Robin Day Reclining Chair by famous designers Ilse Crawford, Tom Dixon and more at twentytwentyone.
With plenty of art installations and displays to get to grips with, the V&A Museum is a great place to start your London Design Festival adventure.
The Victoria & Albert Museum is always a hub of activity during the Design Festival where you'll find extraordinary installations nestled throughout this west London venue. We've rounded up the best bits to sink your teeth into.
Step inside the V&A and you'll be met by the enormous glittering Swarovski sculpture riddled with 600 crystals by Norwegian designer Kim Thomé. This stunning work built from black aluminium, entitled Zotem, is designed to encourage visitors to stray into the ceramics galleries upstairs, Thomé's favourite part of the museum.
Frida Escobedo London installation
The jewel in the crown at the V&A is the gorgeous summer pavilion You Know, You Cannot See Yourself So Well as by Reflection, designed this year by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, best known for her bold designs that celebrate raw materials and splashes of hot colour. Rather than a conventional pavilion, Escobedo has created a series of mirrored platforms which feel more like an ancient Aztec temple than a central London courtyard.
Curiosity Cloud
In the V&A's Norfolk House Music Room you'll find the Perrier-Jouët London Design Festival Curiosity Cloud designed by award-winning Austrian team mischer'traxler. This intriguing creation is made up for 250 mouth-blown glass globes, each shimmering with an individual hand-fabricated insect inside which glows and sparks as they touch the glass. As the audience interacts with the installation, so the volume gets turned up on these frantic insects to eventually create a cacophony of sound.
The Ogham Wall art installation
2015 is all about Irish Design at the V&A following a year-long initiative with the London museum and the Irish government. The Ogham Wall by Stirling Prize nominees Grafton Architects translates the ancient Irish Ogham alphabet into a curious three metre high structure of concrete 'fins' in the V&A Tapestry Gallery. This innovative installation uses individual patterns etched onto concrete to suggest the texture of a sacred tree.
Tower of Babel | V&A
Don't miss ceramic artist Barnbary Barford's enormous Tower of Babel, made of 3000 bone china façades each with a different photograph of London shops. From the rundown and derelict to the exclusive and chic, this playful biblical tower reaches up to touch the ceiling of the V&A Medieval & Renaissance Galleries.
Across the way you'll also find Laetitia de Allegri & Matteo Fogale collaboration with Johnson Tiles: a colourful bridge inspired by the famous V&A collection of stained glass.
Robin Day London show
But the real highlight for serious interior design lovers is the V&A exhibition celebrating the centenary of radical post-war British furniture designer Robin Day. We recommend a visit to the fantastic wooden installation by the Turner Prize nominated design and architecture collective, Assemble, inspired by Day's sleek simplicity and love for timber in his famous industrial designs. If you are a fan you'll also enjoy the spectacular contemporary re-imagining of the Robin Day Reclining Chair by famous designers Ilse Crawford, Tom Dixon and more at twentytwentyone.
With plenty of art installations and displays to get to grips with, the V&A Museum is a great place to start your London Design Festival adventure.
What | London Design Festival 2015, V&A |
Where | V&A, South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL | MAP |
Nearest tube | South Kensington (underground) |
When |
19 Sep 15 – 27 Sep 15, 10:00 AM – 5:45 PM |
Price | £Prices vary |
Website | Click here for more details |