V&A East Storehouse is the open-access depository for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection of art, design, fashion and performance. With a total floorspace of 16,000 square meters (over 30 basketball courts) and spanning four levels, it is based in Hackney Wick, London, on a site originally used as the media centre for the 2012 Olympic Games. It is free to enter.

Walking up the stairs, through an airlock, I found myself in a world of steel, glass and gantries; of spacious aisles, long shelves and open crates – all artificially lit from above to protect the exhibits.

I passed marble heads, ornate furniture and colourful vases; cherubs, chessboards and chimney pots. Here was an example of Palestinian embroidery, a collection of Yemeni funerary stelae. Over there, costumes and cannons; street signs, an abacus, a wireless and some grandfather clocks. Through the glass floor-window, a carved colonnade from Agra.

Everything was carefully catalogued and bar coded – but, at the same time, the collection was completely jumbled up.

Arms and armour, rococo mirrors, a gleaming motorbike and a ‘70s mug collection. A Minitel 1 computer terminal. A small child’s West Ham top, sponsored by ‘BAC, the window people.’

A middle-aged woman walked past, observing to her husband:

‘They seem to have had a lot of boxes in the olden days.’

I was feeling a little disorientated. I yearned for some commentary to make sense of it all - something to aid insight and understanding; to illuminate theme and variation. However, the collection is arranged by the sizes and weights of the objects. And, with the exception of some highlight-displays at the end of each storage rack, there is no attempt at formal categorisation or neat narrative.

A sign asked for Feedback:
‘What new stories could we tell about our objects?’

Underneath, someone had complained:
‘Silence is a terrible narrator.’

To be fair, visitors are invited to scan QR codes to learn more about some of the objects. But I’m too old for that now, and it reminds me of Covid. There is also an Order an Object service, by which you can arrange an appointment to see up to 5 pieces from the collection in a private study room.

Most people were, like me, just wandering around, taking it all in, peeking at anything that caught their eye.

Past some ceramic tiles, tribal masks and a toy truck. A gilded altarpiece, a corset and a double bass. Blue plaque, bike, Budha, Bowie setlist.

At length, I overheard a Young Person exclaim in delight:

‘Every 2 seconds I’m seeing something and thinking: Yo, that’s so cool!’

Adopting this mindset, I determined to let myself go; to give in to the infinite variety; to be curious, available for interesting juxtapositions, for serendipity.
In the accompanying literature, one of the architects described the experience as ‘an immersive cabinet of curiosities.’ I found myself grasping for other analogies. It’s like channel surfing; walking through the internet of things; a garden of culture. It’s like Charles Foster Kane’s vast collection of antiquities. It’s the multiverse. It’s everything everywhere all at once.

I came across a couple of set-piece show-stoppers: the Kaufmann Office, a complete honey-coloured interior, designed in the 1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright for a Pittsburgh retail magnate; the Frankfurt Kitchen, a pistachio exercise in minimalist functionality, created in the 1920s by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, and installed in 10,000 flats.

And then there was a melancholy display of remnants from a now demolished Brutalist housing estate in nearby Polplar, Robin Hood Gardens. And some toiles that fashion students have crafted, based on original designs by Balenciaga – an imaginative exercise to better understand his technique.

Shoes, chandeliers, a painted tiger and a bus conductor. I could go on…

I’d certainly recommend a visit to the V&A East Storehouse. You just need to adopt the right mentality: set aside the Strategist’s craving for order and explanation; relax, be inquisitive, and open yourself up to stimulation and inspiration.

Finally, back to the Visitor Feedback:
‘What new stories could we tell about our objects?’

In a flamboyant scribble, a Young Person had requested:
‘Haunted, demonic and possessed, puhlease!!!’

Exactly.

'A police car and a screaming siren.
A pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete,
A baby wailing and stray dog howling,
The screech of brakes and lamp light blinking,
That's entertainment.
That's entertainment.
A smash of glass and a rumble of boots,
An electric train and a ripped up phone booth,
Paint splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat,
Lights going out and a kick in the balls.
I say, that's entertainment.
That's entertainment.
Days of speed and slow time Mondays,
Pissing down with rain on a boring Wednesday,
Watching the news and not eating your tea,
A freezing cold flat and damp on the walls.
I say that's entertainment.
That's entertainment.’
The Jam, ’That’s Entertainment’ (P Weller)

No. 577

On a trip to Chicago last year I visited the home and studio of the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Hard to believe that this visionary modern building was designed in the late nineteenth century. It’s a commonplace criticism of modern architects that they wouldn’t live in the houses they design. But Wright was the exception to this rule. His home and studio were a living laboratory for his hypotheses and new approaches to living space. In his home he introduced fluid connecting rooms, built-in benches, windows located high on the wall so as to avoid prying eyes. In his studio he specified magnesite floors for comfort and sound absorption; he conducted stand-up meetings with Clients who were kept away from the working architects. Wright valued privacy, natural light, simple, organic structures. He enclosed a tree in a passageway and a baby grand piano in a wall. He believed that buildings should be designed in harmony with people and the environment. And he lived his work.

In the marketing and communications industry, what would be our equivalent of this committed approach to life and work? What would happen if we let the personal inspire the professional? How can we truly live our work?

Of course, we could begin by consuming more of the work we produce: watching, not skipping, the ads on commercial TV and YouTube; doing the weekly shop; examining the packaging; walking the High Street; listening to conversations on the bus. If brands are shared behaviours and beliefs, it’s critical that marketing and communication experts participate in shared popular culture.

I would suggest that the best and most successful creative professionals experience life in its infinite variety and infuse their work with their acquired knowledge and insight. A film or football match, a good read or bad play, a walk in the park, a dance in the dark, a word in the ear, a feast for the eyes. A life fully lived provides the material for creative thought. Random, extraneous, unrelated experiences inspire lateral leaps and imaginative connections. The personal stimulates the professional.

I once hired a young Planner whom I’d interviewed in the pub. But the new joiner wasn’t a great success. In the pub he had been a charming raconteur, a thoughtful observer. But in the office he became a conventional thinker, a Steady Eddie. I tried to persuade this Planner to bring something of the bloke I’d met down the pub into the office, but it wasn’t a transition he seemed capable of. For him the worlds of work and leisure were fundamentally separate and distinct.

Of course, for the most part the modern work-life relationship is out of balance in work’s favour. It’s normal nowadays to answer office emails at home, to catch up after the kids have gone to bed, to work at the weekend, to conference-call on Californian time.

Over-work poses problems on two fronts. On a basic level it drains the employee of energy and initiative. But it also starves colleagues of the experiences and insights that enable them to perform at their best. If you cancel that trip to the cinema, club, theatre or gallery, you deny yourself the opportunity to think, feel and see. And you deny your business your ability to imagine, leap and dream.

In my industrious youth I was often tempted to cancel social engagements because I had too much to do at the office. But I must have been rather stubborn back then and I refused to let this happen. I cut down on my sleep instead. In time fatigue forced me to be more efficient at work. It’s not an approach I’d necessarily recommend…

I believe the over-worked under-perform because they are under-stimulated. Blurring the lines between the personal and professional should not mean letting the professional dominate everything. It should mean letting one’s rich home, family, cultural and social life inform and inspire one’s work. And this should enhance both sides of the work-life equation.

‘Oh, I’m out here trying to make it,
Baby, can’t you see?
It takes a lot of money to make it,
Let’s talk truthfully.
So keep your love light burnin,’
Oh, you gotta have a little faith.
You might as well get used to me
Coming home a little late.
Oh, I can’t wait to get home to you,
I got so much work to do.’

The Isley Brothers, Work To Do

No. 80

V&A East Storehouse: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Frank Lloyd Wright: When the Personal Inspires the Professional