The V&A Museum is filled with chunks of architecture saved from demolition, but an ornate staircase I had assumed was the same turns out not to be at all.
Found at the museum’s northwest corner, this is the appropriately named ceramic staircase.
I’ve often wandered up and down the stairs and assumed without really thinking about it that they must have been saved from some grand house or official building somewhere. After all, the museum is full of such saved fragments, and even entire rooms.
However, when I finally thought to read the sign on the stairs explaining them, I was in for a surprise. The ceramic staircase was purpose-built for the museum, and in fact, the whole museum is supposed to look like it.
Constructed as part of the first stage of building between 1865-69 (some say 1871), the museum’s first director, Sir Henry Cole, had intended that the entire museum be decorated in such an opulent manner. But spiralling costs meant that only a small portion was completed.
However, although there was enough cash to build more than the staircase, changing tastes meant that they were stripped back in 1914, and only restored in 1995.
Leaving just the staircase in its original state, which is marking its 160th birthday this year.
The staircase was designed by Francis Wollaston Moody, a member of staff in the Museum’s design studio and a lecturer in the adjoining School of Art, and once led to the school via the ceramics gallery, although these days it leads to the silverware gallery.
The ceramics were produced by Staffordshire-based Minton in a style known as ‘Della Robbia’ ware after the Florentine family of sculptors and ceramicists who perfected it in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The staircase was not just meant as a final product to decorate the museum, but also as a training aid, as students were employed to create some of the decorations. That fitted in with the museum’s ethos of supporting education in the arts.
The choice of ceramics was partially aesthetic, but in a public building, there are practicalities to consider – and ceramics are very easy to wipe down and keep clean.
Particularly useful in soot-polluted London.
Something worth looking at is the dome, which is not perfectly smooth as they used a newish idea for the time – lots of hexagonal tiles. In fact, it’s a very modern idea as well, as large telescopes facing the near impossibility of creating vast mirrors use a cluster of smaller hexagonal mirrors instead.
Although built for the V&A, the initials S and A appear through the design, for Science and Arts.
In a way, I am pleased the whole museum doesn’t look like this as had been originally intended, as it would be overwhelming for the senses, and you’d probably need sunglasses to visit.
More importantly, objects on display would be rendered nearly invisible against the ornate background. That’s partially why the other rooms decorated in this style are now home to the silver collection, as only plain metal can stand out against the background.
These days, museums and galleries tend towards plain rooms to show off the objects, so hurrah for a bit of decoration. Just not this much.
You can find the ceramic staircase at the northwest corner of the museum.
