How do you piece together over 150 parts of a precious 500-year-old gilded ceiling, working at 10 metres in the air, inside a construction site in east London? As we get closer to the opening of V&A East in 2025, I wanted to take you behind the scenes of the installation of the Torrijos ceiling, one of six large architectural fragments that are being embedded within the design and construction of V&A East Storehouse. Originally built in the 1490s for a palace in central Spain, visitors will be able to gaze up at this remarkable carved and gilded wooden ceiling, as well as view a section of the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kauffmann Office and more.
This project has been 5 years in the making and brought together expertise from across the museum and beyond, including architects, engineers, research, conservation, technical services and projects teams. Fitting together the heavy sections of timber, working with scaffolding and lifts at 10 metres in the air, all alongside conservation work happening simultaneously, was a hugely challenging process that took a team of 8 people over 15 weeks. It’s been a privilege to work with these teams to complete this installation and it has been a huge highlight of my 12 years working at the V&A. I can’t wait for visitors to be able to see this amazing object in the flesh.
Read more about the research and conservation of the Torrijos ceiling here.
well done holly harris and colleagues! can’t wait to see this!
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