The David Bowie Centre, in the new V&A East Storehouse in Stratford, east London, promises to be a treasure trove for stalwart fans and new devotees of the influential musician who died in 2016. Opening on 13 September, the 90,000-piece archive, acquired via the Bowie estate, will be free to view with timed ticket entry.
“What is mind-blowing is the sheer volume of material Bowie saved,” says Madeleine Haddon, the lead curator for the David Bowie Centre and a curator at V&A East, the campus comprising V&A East Storehouse and the V&A East Museum, which is due to open next year. “From scribbled notes to elaborate concept sketches, it’s a powerful reminder that no idea was too small. He treated the creative process as something worth documenting at every stage—an approach that offers a rich legacy for artists of all disciplines.”
Archive discoveries Haddon found particularly evocative include Bowie’s paint palette with dried paint, brush and palette knife—“simple tools that speak to the breadth of his creative practice”—and a framed photo of Little Richard, “whom Bowie credited as the reason he became a musician, and that remained with him throughout his life”.
Union Flag frockcoat designed by David Bowie and Alexander McQueen for Earthling, 1997
Photo by David Parry, PA Media Assignment
An interactive installation, Library of Connections, reveals who influenced Bowie and his footprint on popular culture, from the sitcom Friends to today’s pop stars such as Charli XCX and Janelle Monáe. Bowie’s notes for his unrealised musical based on George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four will also be shown in a display about projects that never reached fruition. “Reworking old ideas and trying out new ones, Bowie blurred the lines beyond his music and performance, producing ideas for films, musicals and other theatrical productions,” Haddon says.
A space for public engagement
The V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition opened in 2013 and included original album art, photos and videos from the Bowie archive. It toured the world and drew more than two million visitors.
“Many may expect a traditional exhibition similar to David Bowie Is, but the centre is something quite different and exciting,” Haddon says, describing it as “a working archive and a space for public engagement, research and discovery”.
A visitor sees some of David Bowie’s awards in storage, at their Order an Object appointment
Photo by David Parry for the V&A
The archive items can be accessed through the V&A East Storehouse’s Order an Object service and its Search the Archives facility. The David Bowie archive cataloguing project, which will make every item available online, will be complete by the end of 2026, a V&A spokesperson says.
Nine curated displays will rotate over time: six displays introduce the range of Bowie’s creative practice, highlighting the types of objects that can be found in the archive. Three thematic displays will meanwhile rotate every six months to a year. These include guest-curated displays, the first of which is curated by the music producer Nile Rodgers and the indie rock band The Last Dinner Party. Two other inaugural displays connect to a forthcoming V&A East Museum exhibition, The Music Is Black: A British Story, and explore Bowie’s connection to jungle and drum and bass music, Haddon says.
The V&A consulted 18 to 25 year olds from four London boroughs about the displays, as drawing younger visitors is key to the centre’s success.
A visitor looks at a Ziggy Stardust costume designed for Bowie by Kansai Yamamoto in 1972
Photo by David Parry, PA Media Assignments
“These consultations and research that we commissioned showed that particularly younger audiences from global majority communities do not have a strong existing connection to Bowie,” Haddon says. “Some have heard his name or are familiar with a few songs, but they often do not know why he was such an iconic figure.”
The centre highlights aspects of Bowie’s legacy that resonate strongly with younger generations today, she says. “One of these is his identity as a multi-hyphenate creative: a musician, writer, designer, actor and visual artist who resisted categorisation—much like how young creatives today seek to work across disciplines without being confined to a single identity.”
The Bowie archive was acquired in February 2023 with a £10m donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, set up by the Ukraine-born businessman Leonard Blavatnik, and Warner Music Group. Asked if the foundation will also fund operational costs, the spokesperson says that “the David Bowie Centre operations are part of the overarching V&A East Storehouse experience”.
The centre does not have a dedicated budget for further acquisitions; any future Bowie-related items proposed for the V&A’s collection will be considered as part of the V&A’s central acquisitions process, the spokesperson adds.
