Travel with me # 56 : Visiting the worlds largest museum of decorative arts and design - The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) (Photos + Video)

Greetings Steemit Friends:

Visiting museums are well worth it!

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking a trip to Albertopolis. Otherwise known as South Kensington. And in particular visiting the V&A museum. The V&A stands for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The area is known as Albertopolis because of it's association with Prince Albert and the institutions associated with him. Some other popular places in this area include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and last but not least, The Royal Albert Hall.

The V&A is considered the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design. In total, it's collection is composed of around four and a half million objects. The history of these objects, span some 5000 years and draw from a variety of cultures including European, North American, Asian and African.

Since 2001, V&A has followed other national British Museums and opened up their exhibitions to the public for free. However, the V&A often hosts paid entry exhibitions, an example of which was the Alexander McQueen show in 2015 which turned out to be a contender for one of the top paid exhibitions in London that year with over 3,400 visitors per day!

Museums are places that inspire people, like with every museums with such a large collection, it can take many visitations to even have a thorough browse of the collections, let alone study much of their individual histories. For me, I really enjoy observing and appreciating the broad mediums through which art has been expressed throughout history. Since I wouldn't consider myself an artist, I find it really hard to have any critiques for any of the exhibits.

I didn't have much time to visit all of the galleries and exhibits in the V&A, in-fact, I probably only covered a tiny fraction. But it's a good reason to keep coming back and seeing the other sections at a later date.

Let's take a look at what I managed to see on this visit!

This is the main entrance which was designed by Aston web from 1899-1909.
You can see Prince Albert in the centre of the main arch above the two entrances and then above the frame and around the arches and entrance, you can see Queen Victoria.

This is the 11 metre high blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly. It has been here since the year 2000 and is the focal point of the main entrance of the V&A.

This is the Weston Cast Court. Most of the objects in this room are plaster casts of the original. The original details are all pretty much retained. Most of the original sculptures were made in the 15th century, and then plaster cast in the 19th century. All of the sculptures in the Weston Cast Court are from Europe. At the V&A, they like to separate the different exhibits by way of region.

These are some of the external displays from the upcoming Pink Floyd exhibition. I'm not too familiar with their music as I haven't listened to very much music from the 60's, but I'm definitely going to come back and learn some more about them.

This is the North Facade. Also home to the central garden which was opened as the John Madejski Garden on July 5th, 2005.
The architecture here is from the Edwardian period and so comprises mainly red brick and portland stone.

This is the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Gallery which is mainly comprised of portraits and memorial sculptures of people and important historical figures. Do you recognise any of them?

Of course, on the way out there is a gift shop. As it was closing time, I was quickly shoo'ed out of the building and was even told to stop taking photos. Still, I managed to get some pictures of these prints which remind me of the winding river city maps I saw at the Shard.

Thanks for taking the time to view my collection of photos from my first visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was only after visiting the museum did I realise that I would need several more visits to see more! So, expect to see some more virtual picture tours of other sections of the museum in the near future! For now, I hope you enjoyed these beautiful sculptures from the Weston Cast Court and Dorothy and Michael Hintze Gallery.

Stay tuned for more travel blogs and much more!