London V&A Museum Audio Tour: A Director's War on Taste

Discover how ambition, personal taste, and a fierce debate over design shaped the Victoria and Albert Museum. This self-guided London V&A Museum audio tour begins at the Cromwell Road entrance and follows the people and objects behind one of the world’s great design collections.

Meet the figures connected to the Great Exhibition of 1851, then look closely at William Morris’s seven-and-a-half-metre Bullerswood Carpet and the Indian textiles that influenced the museum’s collecting. Continue through medieval jewellery and Tudor bronze to the Ardabil Carpet, woven around 1540 for an Iranian royal shrine. Along the way, hear about Henry Cole’s “Chamber of Horrors,” four bronze angels that spent decades on golf club gateposts, and a Yorkshire chair made to look older than it was. The route ends at the Ceramic Staircase.

With offline audio, maps, and geodata, you can explore at your own pace and pause wherever an object catches your eye. Download the app before you arrive, bring your smartphone and headphones, and experience the London V&A Museum audio tour on your own terms.