Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, holding a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. The museum operates across six sites in the United Kingdom, with its original London location in South Kensington covering 12.5 acres and housing more than 145 galleries. Other sites include the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, V&A Dundee, the Wedgwood Collection in Stoke-on-Trent, and two new venues in east London (Storehouse opened 2025 and Museum opened 2026). The collection spans 5,000 years and includes works from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Visitors can explore extensive holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, jewellery, silver, metalwork, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints, drawings, and photographs. The East Asian collections are especially strong in ceramics and metalwork, and the Islamic collection is among the largest in the Western world. The museum also boasts one of the world's largest collections of post-classical sculpture, with Italian Renaissance pieces second only to Italy's collections. As a national British museum, admission is free, making it an accessible and rich cultural experience for anyone interested in design and world art.