V&A Museum_2018 12 08_0776
The southern side of the garden contains galleries and, above them, the National Art Library. From the garden, the interior of the two-story library can be seen. Fifteen mosaic panels representing scientific and artistic subjects such as Engineering, Mining, Steel Smelting, Building, Fine Arts, Drawing and Astronomy, form a frieze above the library windows | John Madejski Garden, named in honor of John Madejski, who funded the design, is known as a meeting point, resting place and home to a changing display of outdoor installations, and to many the heart of the V&A. The modern-day garden was designed in 2005 by landscape architect Kim Wilkie. The stepped, elliptical pool and water feature provide a serene reflection of the surrounding buildings while the lawn and planters impart a tranquil backdrop to the array of temporary outdoor displays. The design is based on the traditional simplicity of a garden courtyard with the drama and flexibility of a stage set. The garden design sits on the borderline between Modern and Postmodern. In its early days, a wide expanse of garden surrounded the South Kensington Museum, as the V&A was known before 1899. The lawns and trees belonged to the original house on the site, Brompton Park House, at one time the home of Queen Anne's gardener, Henry Wise. These gardens were gradually built over as the Museum expanded and today the enclosed garden courtyard, formed between 1857 and 1909, is a small reminder of the gardens which once filled most of the neighborhood that we now know as South Kensington. It was intended that a u-shaped arrangement would remain open to the south, with the entrance visible from Cromwell Road, but in the end the fourth side was filled in with an art library, completed in 1884 to enclose the courtyard. Viewing the buildings around the garden, visitors are treated to a wealth of decorative ornamentation – including terracotta modelling, mosaic and tiles – on each of the buildings' façades. The Museum's founding Director, Henry Cole, employed a team of decorative designers to apply painting, sculpture, mosaic and elaborate ironwork to the buildings, so that their exteriors were as beautiful and as instructive as the collections within them. Other sculptural details on the façades of the buildings are not carved but are modelled in terracotta. A clay-based ceramic, terracotta could be easily molded by hand or by tools, was more cost-effective and quicker to carve than other materials such as stone or marble. Reusable molds were used to produce many identical pieces, which saved money as each piece of sculpture or tile could be repeated many times using the same mold. The molds for the terracotta columns above the entrance, for instance, were reused for the façade of the Henry Cole Wing on Exhibition Road.
V&A Museum_2018 12 08_0776
The southern side of the garden contains galleries and, above them, the National Art Library. From the garden, the interior of the two-story library can be seen. Fifteen mosaic panels representing scientific and artistic subjects such as Engineering, Mining, Steel Smelting, Building, Fine Arts, Drawing and Astronomy, form a frieze above the library windows | John Madejski Garden, named in honor of John Madejski, who funded the design, is known as a meeting point, resting place and home to a changing display of outdoor installations, and to many the heart of the V&A. The modern-day garden was designed in 2005 by landscape architect Kim Wilkie. The stepped, elliptical pool and water feature provide a serene reflection of the surrounding buildings while the lawn and planters impart a tranquil backdrop to the array of temporary outdoor displays. The design is based on the traditional simplicity of a garden courtyard with the drama and flexibility of a stage set. The garden design sits on the borderline between Modern and Postmodern. In its early days, a wide expanse of garden surrounded the South Kensington Museum, as the V&A was known before 1899. The lawns and trees belonged to the original house on the site, Brompton Park House, at one time the home of Queen Anne's gardener, Henry Wise. These gardens were gradually built over as the Museum expanded and today the enclosed garden courtyard, formed between 1857 and 1909, is a small reminder of the gardens which once filled most of the neighborhood that we now know as South Kensington. It was intended that a u-shaped arrangement would remain open to the south, with the entrance visible from Cromwell Road, but in the end the fourth side was filled in with an art library, completed in 1884 to enclose the courtyard. Viewing the buildings around the garden, visitors are treated to a wealth of decorative ornamentation – including terracotta modelling, mosaic and tiles – on each of the buildings' façades. The Museum's founding Director, Henry Cole, employed a team of decorative designers to apply painting, sculpture, mosaic and elaborate ironwork to the buildings, so that their exteriors were as beautiful and as instructive as the collections within them. Other sculptural details on the façades of the buildings are not carved but are modelled in terracotta. A clay-based ceramic, terracotta could be easily molded by hand or by tools, was more cost-effective and quicker to carve than other materials such as stone or marble. Reusable molds were used to produce many identical pieces, which saved money as each piece of sculpture or tile could be repeated many times using the same mold. The molds for the terracotta columns above the entrance, for instance, were reused for the façade of the Henry Cole Wing on Exhibition Road.