A new and less intimidating entrance has helped the V&A achieve record visitor numbers, bucking a trend of sharp falls across the UK’s museums and galleries.
The museum said more than 4.4 million people visited the V&A and its London satellites, Blythe House and the Museum of Childhood. That represents a 26% rise of almost a million visitors on the previous year.
It announced the figures, which the chair of the V&A, Nicholas Coleridge, described as “phenomenal”, as it published its annual review and revealed an exhibition programme for 2019 that includes major shows on food and cars.
The museum’s director, Tristram Hunt, said finally getting a new entrance on Exhibition Road had helped drive up visitor numbers. It was less intimidating than the grand “castle keep” way in on Cromwell Road.
“All the data we have shows that it is much more attractive to non-traditional museumgoers,” said Hunt. “It is less, frankly, scary.”
The figures were also boosted by the success of its Pink Floyd show, which overtook David Bowie to become the museum’s most popular music exhibition.
Hunt said there was a buzz around the museum but visitor numbers were not everything. “It is wonderful to get to 4 million visitors, but my ambition is not to get to 5 million visitors. My ambition is to make sure we are doing more with education and design and to make sure our scholarship and research is where it needs to be.”
Visitor numbers for 2017 have fallen at other national museums and galleries in London, with a dramatic fall of 35% at the National Portrait Gallery and 16.5% at the National Gallery. Among the causes have been rail problems, fear of terrorism and the expense of London travel and restaurants.
The V&A opened its new £55m porcelain-tiled piazza and entrance, together with underground exhibition space, last June. Designed by Amanda Levete Architects, it was the successor to the polarising 1997 design by Daniel Libeskind, once described as “the Guggenheim in Bilbao turned on its side and then beaten senseless with a hammer”. Plans for the Spiral were eventually pulled in 2004.
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