Dazzling new additions like V&A East are a source of national pride, but so are much-loved regional institutions
T
he V&A East Museum, which opens its doors for the first time in Stratford, London, on Saturday, is the latest addition to the buzzing East Bank cultural quarter on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This £135m architect-designed V&A outpost is a short walk from the V&A East Storehouse (on Time Magazine’s list of The World’s Greatest Places to Visit 2026) and Sadler’s Wells East, both of which arrived last year. The London College of Fashion has been there since 2024 and BBC Music Studios are due to open in 2027. Art, design, dance, fashion and music – welcome to London’s 21st-century culturopolis.
This once-neglected area of London – “a place where fridges went to die” as Gus Casely-Hayford, the director of V&A East, put it – has been transformed into a creative mecca. But in many parts of the UK the story is one of falling visitor numbers, job losses and the closure of much-loved music venues and art spaces. These architectural palaces are a far cry from many of the crumbling theatres and museums outside the capital (and their well-maintained European equivalents).
It is this creaking infrastructure that culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, hopes to shore up with her Arts Everywhere Fund, a £1.5bn package for cultural organisations over five years, announced in 2025. This week £130m was awarded to more than 130 of England’s museums, theatres, venues and libraries – the largest cash injection into the arts for a decade.
