Museum · England · Still standing

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) at South Kensington is the United Kingdom's national museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housed in a large complex of 19th- and early-20th-century buildings. The Aston Webb Cromwell Road façade (completed 1909) fronts extensive galleries, courts and skylit halls that display the museum's collections.

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Explore it in 1863· brompton boilers era Explore it in 1873· cast courts interior

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons

First raised

1852

Its prime

1909

Today

Still standing

As it stood in 1909

What Victoria and Albert Museum looked like in its prime.

A long 720-foot frontage of red brick and pale Portland stone punctuated by a sequence of shallow classical arches and tall windows; a broad Portland stone stair leads up to twin entrance doors set within a deeply moulded semicircular arch. Above the entrance rises a multi-stage tower of pale stone with an open-work crowned top and a statue, while the east end shows a red‑brick, banded tower and domed roof. Rooflights and glazed top-storey rooms punctuate the skyline.

Step inside

10 places to explore in 1909.

The record describes 10 distinct spots at Victoria and Albert Museum, including 8 interiors: entrance hall and rotunda, east hall (rooms 50a & 50b), west hall (raphael cartoons) and more. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more photos, more angles and more of the immersive experience.

Cromwell Road approach and main stepsEntrance Hall and rotundaEast Hall (Rooms 50a & 50b)West Hall (Raphael Cartoons)Cast Courts with Trajan's Column and David replicasCounter Cast Court with Michelangelo's David replicaCeramic StaircaseFashion Gallery (domed octagonal)South Court with upper gallerySheepshanks Gallery exterior and entrance

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