Lunchtime Lectures: Bringing Design 1900-Now Up to Now

Design 1900–Now gallery showcases around 250 objects from the V&A's collections of 20th- and 21st-century design. From the everyday to the provocative, the gallery explores and interrogates how design shapes our lives and vice versa, reflecting our past, present and future through objects we create and use across the globe. It also hosts the Rapid Response Collecting display, which invites staff and the public to suggest contemporary items for the museum’s collection while they remain part of active public discourse. 

 

Five years after the gallery’s opening in 2021, the curatorial team undertook substantial rotation in February 2026, introducing 60 new objects to keep abreast with recent technological and societal changes, while responding to conservation needs and feedback from visitors and peers.  

 
Join Anna Bates (Curator, Furniture and Product Design, 1900–Now) and William Seung (Assistant Curator, Design and Digital) as they discuss this recent update and reflect on the learnings and challenges that have emerged from maintaining a contemporary design gallery’s relevance in a rapidly changing world.

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