Universal Objects and Universal Museums
The South Kensington Museum and the V&A
The South Kensington Museum opened in 1857, though new additions and expansions continued throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Between the 1870s and 1880s, the Science Museum separated from the South Kensington Museum and a new building began to be constructed on the western side of Exhibition Road.
In 1899, the South Kensington Museum was renamed as the Victoria and Albert Museum and planning began for its extension. This extension, adding galleries and a facade on Cromwell Road, was concluded in the early 20th century and the museum officially reopened in 1909. During the re-organisation, while the museum continued to develop its arts and design collections and the College of Art continued to train new students and support teachers and Art Schools in London and across England, a Committee was planning the rearrangement of the collections in the new spaces.
The Committee of Rearrangement of 1908 revised the history of the museum and its strategies in order to consider what should be collected and displayed (and how) in the future. At the same time, more practical questions such as those about the space and needs for each department were considered.
In this section, we explore some of the questions considered by the Commissioners.
How does the museum work?
One of the first questions the Committee needed to address concerned the spatial needs of the different departments and activities of the museum. The report highlights that the disposition of the galleries was affected by ‘matters of internal administration’, such as 'the offices of the expert staff of the Museum’. Details of how to approach this and other internal issues were discussed in the first part of the report.
What's the scope of the museum?
Once it was decided which spaces needed to be reserved for the staff or for other regular events (such as the display of works of art submitted for the yearly National Competition), the Committee focused on how to organise the displays in the remaining spaces. But the intent of the displays depended on the functions of the museum itself, and so the Committee revised these (which had been defined by the Board of Education) and compared them with those of other London museums.
The extent of the debate regarding this matter is clear from the report: 'The instructions to the Committee clearly indicated that the Board of Education intended that this Museum should definitely be developed as a Museum of Applied Art. At the same time it was pointed out that at present the collections were not confined to objects which might strictly speaking be comprised in such a Museum as nowadays understood, and that advantage should be taken of such collections to increase the general educational utility of the museum.'
Furthermore, by looking at how objects had been collected, the Committee could refine their understanding of the scope of the museum: 'The bulk of the collections have been acquired with the definite object of illustrating the development of design and craftsmanship, and no question could arise as to the propriety of their inclusion in this Museum. In their case the Committee could proceed at once to discuss and determine the system on which they should be classified and arranged. Since, however, it is these collections which give, and are intended to give, the Museum its special character, it is clear that the principles determined upon their arrangement must form the foundation of the arrangement for the whole of the Museum.’
How do we classify and display objects?
The review of the scope of the museum concluded with the evaluation ‘that their scheme of arrangement should provide primarily for the needs of those who used the Museum as a Museum of Industrial Art.'
It was then necessary to consider the objects already in the collections and decide how to group them: 'They [the commissioners], accordingly, proceeded to consider the principles of classification of the collections which would be most suitable for this purpose.’
A revision of the opinions and recommendations of different successive Committees on the classifications of the collections followed.
How do we compare to museums abroad?
The former, which is now being greatly enlarged, will be rearranged (1) by materials and development of design and craft; (2) by historical rooms to show the interaction of design in different materials. The latter has just been re-arranged. It was desired to arrange it so as to show the history and development of each craft. From want of space and inadequacy of the collection this, however, did not prove possible. The bulk of the Museum is arranged according to material.'
The revision of the organisation of the museum was not done in isolation; the commissioners examined both other museums in London (so as to also emphasise the niche that the V&A would have filled) and a series of museums abroad, in order to compare approaches to collecting and displaying industrial art.
The report says that ‘in addition to the collection of information relating to the systems of arrangement and organisation of Museums abroad special visits were paid by two members of the Committee to many of the Continental Museums. Of those which offer an analogy to the Victoria and Albert Museum and devote special attention to the exhibition of Industrial Art two of the principal Museums visited, the Oesterreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie at Vienna and the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Dresden were found to be in process of re-arrangement.