Exhibition Road Quarter

Interesting talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival bringing together Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, and Amanda Levete, the architect of the museums new extension.

Hunt began by talking about the history of the museum and the area to place this new extension in context. He also talked about previous ideas for the development and how the current design was chosen.


 
Levete then took over to talk about the thinking behind the design and how it aims to taking the energy from the street and bringing it into the museum space blurring the boundary between museum and street. She talked about how they had to dig a basement 20m deep while the rest of the museum, full of delicate objects, stayed open.  
 
There was a fascinating discussion between them at the end and some good Q&As from the audience, most of whom seemed to have visited the new extension. I loved Levete’s answer to one question about what she’d have done if she’d not got permission for opening up the screen onto the street, “I’m not a big fan of Plan B”!