Design for a Nation: The Victoria and Albert Museum in the 21st Century

Dr Tristram Hunt is director of the V&A: the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance.

He will discuss how the museum’s founding commitment to design, education and industry continues to define it today.

Tracing the museum’s genesis, from its Victorian roots in the Design School Movement of the 1830s, through the Great Exhibition of 1851, to its establishment in 1852 as the Museum of Manufactures, he considers how the V&A’s British, Germanic, Indian and Oriental origins engendered a world-class collection. In our contemporary age of Brexit, Netflix and digital technology, Dr Hunt uses this cultural lens to consider the museum’s place in the world today.

Dr Hunt's lecture will be followed by a drinks reception and the launch of Birkbeck's new Centre for Museum Cultures.