David Bowie Centre to open and host over 90,000 items at V&A East in London

The V&A in London has announced that it will be opening a new visitor attraction, the V&A East Storehouse, next year, which will be home to a David Bowie Centre.

The new working store and visitor attraction will be open to the public from May 31, and located at East Bank – the new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It is set to home over 500,000 works, including the Glastonbury Festival Archives, costumes from PJ Harvey and Elton John, designer couture, vintage shirts, Samurai swords and many more. It will also house over 100 curated mini-displays.

While the East Storehouse will open in the spring, later in the year, the long-awaited David Bowie Centre will be opening at the new site and expected to contain an archive of over 90,000 items related to the iconic artist.

The items will trace Bowie’s “creative processes as a musical innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention”, and have been acquired by the V&A through the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.

Highlights of the centre will include some of the singer’s most iconic outfits throughout the years, as well as lyrics for his songs and various examples of his ‘cut up’ method of writing, which he was introduced to through writer William Burroughs.

First teased back in February 2023, the centre will open on September 13 next year and will be split into three separate zones. It will also have a mix of small, curated displays and audio-visual installations, alongside quieter study areas where visitors can explore aspects of the archive on their own.

“From Bowie’s iconic costume to musical instruments, make-up charts, stage models, Oblique Strategies card decks, personal notes, writings, lyrics and music, sketches, designs and more, at V&A East Storehouse, visitors can get closer to David Bowie than ever before,” reads a press release.

It added: “To develop the inaugural David Bowie Centre displays, the curatorial team consulted with 18–25-year-olds from the four Olympic Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest through London Legacy Development Corporation and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s Elevate Youth Voice.”

A series of guest curators – including people who worked alongside Bowie – will also be making appearances at the centre to share their insights with fans. Visit here to find out more about the V&A East Storehouse.

When it was first announced last year, V&A Director Dr Tristram Hunt said: “David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time. The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public.

“Bowie’s radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style – from Berlin to Tokyo to London – continue to influence design and visual culture and inspire creatives from Janelle Monáe to Lady Gaga to Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons.”

Similarly, a spokesperson from the David Bowie Estate added: “With David’s life’s work becoming part of the UK’s national collections, he takes his rightful place amongst many other cultural icons and artistic geniuses. The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performance – and the behind the scenes access that V&A East Storehouse offers – will mean David’s work can be shared with the public in ways that haven’t been possible before, and we’re so pleased to be working closely with the V&A to continue to commemorate David’s enduring cultural influence.”

In 2018, the ‘David Bowie Is’ exhibition was re-imagined as a VR experience, after it closed that year following being hosted in 12 cities across six years since its 2013 debut.

In other Bowie news, it was recently revealed by Glen Matlock that the music icon kept original artworks by Picasso and Matisse in his car, and that a collection of previously unseen footage of him performing ‘Starman’ during the Ziggy Stardust tour had been uncovered.

Before then, music PR legend Alan Edwards opened up to NME about his time working with Bowie, and revealed how the singer used to disguise himself in public during the height of his commercial success.