V&A Museum of Childhood

The Museum of Childhood, part of the V&A’s family of museums, is well known for the quality of its collections and for its educational activities within the East End of London. Caruso St John worked on a phased plan to improve the facilities of the building and refresh the display of its collections.The original listed building has an extraordinary history, its iron structure was first built in west London, on the site of what is now the main V&A building, to house displays from the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was later dismantled and rebuilt with new facades in east London. A lack of funds at the time meant that the architect's full plans for the front of the museum were never carried out, leaving the building without the proper entrance and front-of-house facilities that a modern museum requires.

The first phase of improvements in 2003 concentrated on renovating the roof and ceiling, opening up the main hall and entrance sequence, and a new exhibition display on the first floor. The second phase in 2006 completed the new collection displays, provided a new learning centre on the lower ground floor and constructed a new entrance building across the front facade of a grade II listed Victorian building. The new entrance pavilion, with its patterned elevations of red quartzite and brown porphyries, gives the Museum the formal front and outward aspect that it previously lacked.Last month my wife and I took our four-year-old daughter to the museum. We were flying to Manchester via London City Airport. Our flight got cancelled so, we had a few hours on our hands, our daughter was getting anxious and irritated as the airport was packed. So, we decided to take her to the V&A Museum of Childhood. I checked online and found a cab service named company with good user reviews and feedback.

The user remarks were very encouraging and complimentary toward the service of the company. I called company and booked a cab from them, they told me that the driver is just around the corner and will be there shortly. In just under a few minutes the driver arrived at the airport. We were travelling from London City Airport to the V&A Museum of Childhood. The driver was very courteous and friendly. He placed our luggage in the boot of the cab and we went on with the trip.

It was our first time visiting London. We are originally from Southampton, we were flying to Aberdeen to meet my parents, but there was some sort of a technical fault with our aircraft that we had to land at London City Airport. After a drive of half an hour, we finally arrived at the museum. Our daughter, Millie, was very happy on reaching the museum. She spent the whole afternoon playing games, and sorting puzzles and there was some other stuff to do as well for the kids. Even though the whole day was filled with tiresome and long travels Millie enjoyed her stay at the museum and we were happy to see her healthy and happy.