New hope for struggling V&A

11 April 2012

At long last there are mammoth changes afoot at the turbulent Victoria and Albert Museum, that graveyard of its directors? careers.

And not just the much-touted opening of the £31 million revamped British Galleries in November and the building of the controversial £80 million Spiral, but a whole new slew of dramatic plans.

Among those detailed by its new director, Mark Jones, are turning the 19th century William Morris and Gamble Rooms ? slap-bang in the middle of the Renaissance galleries ? back into ?refreshment rooms?; new contemporary and architecture galleries above the entrance hall; the transformation of the Pirelli Gardens, and the probable lopping down of its trademark cypresses.

And that?s just the beginning. There?s also the dismantling of the picture galleries in the Henry Cole wing (the paintings will be incorporated into other galleries); and even ? a more long-term plan, but high on Jones?s wish list ? restoring the magnificent, painted castiron South Court which since the Second World War has been filled with far-from-beautiful temporary room structures.

Can he deliver? Is Mark Jones the director who will finally succeed in turning the ailing museum into the thriving place it deserves to be?

Jones has a record of making large and improbable things happen. While at the helm of the National Museums of Scotland in the Nineties, he saw through a huge £55 million project to build the new Museum of Scotland, of which he had to find £18 million.

The trustees of the V&A desperately hope he will be able to work a similar magic. There is still £2.8 million to raise for the British Galleries. Jones is ?quite optimistic? this will be achieved before the opening, in just 11 weeks. He then has to find tens of millions for the futuristic Spiral extension (£31 million is already promised), which he sees as ?a successor to the Boilerhouse?.

The V&A has been in trouble for as long as most Londoners can remember. The last three directors all had memorable vicissitudes: Sir Roy Strong battled with the museum?s acres of leaking roof before attracting adverse publicity for hacking down the garden?s cherry trees and allowing its sponsorship by Pirelli, and for introducing ? voluntary donations?; Elizabeth Esteve-Coll fixed the roof but earned international opprobrium for sacking dozens of expert curators and introducing an ad campaign for an ?Ace cafe with quite a nice museum attached?; while the outgoing Alan Borg brought in compulsory admission charges, leading to sinking attendance figures, and suffered an enormous brouhaha over Daniel Libeskind?s proposed Spiral.

Mark Jones might just make it. His style is quiet but determined.

He was far from favourite to take on the museum world?s most alluring poisoned chalice, being spoken of instead as a head for the British Museum. Appointed director on his 50th birthday (which should give him 10 years to see through major plans), he arrived on 1 May, and at once restored free admission for the opening of the British Galleries. Since then he has kept his head down as he acquainted himself with the detail ? and the personnel ? of the museum.

There have been no public pronouncements and he has declined all requests for interviews. But now London?s most reticent museum director is ready to speak, and he is as open as he hopes the museum will soon be ? quite literally.

He wants to reopen the tunnel linking it to South Kensington Underground station (it?s been shut since the Seventies), to reinstate the route from Cromwell Road through the museum and to bring light into the Medieval Treasury (which may not remain the Medieval Treasury because of its passagelike status). He also plans ?to open up some of the views originally in the Victorian building?, such as those looking onto the Cast Court and the upper reaches of Trajan?s Column.

It is all part of his aim ?to think about the Victoria and Albert Museum as a whole and make it much easier for people to find their way around. We?ve also got to do something about the number of galleries that haven?t been touched for a long time or have very unsatisfactory lighting and labelling.?

His guide is the 10-year masterplan which architectural consultant Stephen Greenberg started to draw up in May 2000 and which is still evolving (the current work on its entrance for improved wheelchair access is part of it). ?Its core idea is to make more of the garden and to help people reorientate themselves in relation to it.?

Jones is determined too to reinforce the museum?s commitment to contemporary design, to be housed in the Spiral.

?When the V&A started [in 1852] it was in part so people could engage with design and what it meant to make things really well and attractively. It was feared that Britain would cease to be competitive if the design of its products wasn?t better than other people?s. The same is true today. It really matters that Britain is in the lead creatively. So, the V&A?s role as a resource for designers and the creative industries is as important as it ever was.

?If you come through the doors of the V&A now and you?re interested in contemporary design, you don?t know where to go. We need a space which looks right for everything happening now ? fashion, graphic art, architecture, photography. And to bring them together so you can make links between them. The Spiral will do that.?

It will be linked with the 20th Century Gallery and the Henry Cole wing, with its Drawings and Riba Collections. Work has yet to begin, and won?t be finished until 2004.

More immediately, on 22 November, is the reopening of the British Galleries (1500-1900), containing 3,000 items ? 50 per cent more than previously. By putting objects into a historical context they will, Jones thinks, ?give people a new idea of British history and in particular British cultural history ? along with the new displays at Tate Britain. For the past few years, if an overseas visitor asked: ?Which museum can I go to that will tell me about British culture??, you scratched your head.

?It?s an important new way of thinking, not seeing design simply in stylistic terms. For anyone interested in British history it?s going to be a great thing.?

He also anticipates that ?numbers will go up, because that?s what normally happens when museums go free. I will certainly be disappointed if they don?t increase by 20 per cent or so.? Jones is more worried about visitor numbers in the long run, ?because of the range of attractions on offer ? and the fact that people?s leisure time doesn?t seem to be growing.? His own expertise is in medals. Recruited to the British Museum by a former head of the V&A, John Pope-Hennessy, he spent 18 years there and is still working on the medals made in Louis XIV?s reign.

Jones is 6ft 4in, slim, and goodlooking in a Robert Kilroy-Silk way, though with an endearingly shy academic manner. The son of a diplomat and educated at Eton and Oxford (where he read PPE), he has shown his independence while remaining part of the Establishment. For example, he shed one half of his family?s surname (Powell-Jones) while at the British Museum. And in the Seventies he stood as a Labour councillor for Westminster long before the advent of New Labour.

A modern man in many ways, he is launching the V&A?s new website on 1 November and is a keen supporter of the Governmentsponsored Culture Online, which will digitalise the museum?s collections ? a mammoth and expensive task. For the rest of the projects it will be up to Jones to raise the necessary funds. At present, two-thirds of the grantinaid is eaten up by salaries for the 800-strong staff.

But still the plans go on: major developments at the Theatre and Bethnal Green Museums (both V&A satellites), establishing links with museums around Britain so that more of its Indian collections can be seen, and projects such as the new architectural gallery. The award-winning projects of its designer, young Scottish architect Gareth Hoskins, include the new visitors? centre at Edinburgh Prison.

It is an extraordinary task to be in charge of a museum on this scale, but Mark Jones seems fully prepared to take on more challenges. He casts a weather eye on the cast gallery where his photograph is being taken and points out the balconies where he still hasn?t been and a wall colour that isn?t entirely successful and is flaking. ?We shall have to do something about that,? he says.

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New hope for struggling V&A

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