Hello John and Jen. Could I start by asking what you have made of the reactions so far to the opening of the V&A East Museum? 

Jen McLachlan  

I think we're just delighted with how well it's landed with the audiences that we have built this museum for. When I take audiences around, or when I'm listening to people as they're experiencing the spaces, the words I get the most often are things like how welcome they feel, that sense of belonging, the generosity of it, how calm it is as a space. So: all of the things that O’Donnell + Tuomey had been considering so deeply within the architecture should deliver I'm hearing now from audiences. We forecast 7000 visitors this weekend; we've had 12,000, and never, at any point, has it felt anything other than just a really calm, friendly, enjoyable vibe. So, it's kind of worked out, but landed better than we could have expected, I think, actually. 

Is that your experience too, John? Do you have anything to add to that? 

Well, for me, what I found so enjoyable - because Jen and I spent a lot of time in the building last week - is that people I met who were working in the building, or who were at work on the show in the building, or who were visiting the building - I'm talking about apart from the people who we were there programmed to meet, just the people you would meet on the stairs or in the windows or in the staff room or in the kitchens, I found it so rewarding how positive the users of the building, the everyday users of the building, were with the space they found. Yes, it was very rewarding, I think. 

What do you think has been the secret behind eliciting that response? 

Well, people give you different answers. People who work in the V&A are very pleased to have a building where they can see out of the window! (laughs) People who are used to coming to museums, I think, are very excited about what's on offer in the museum; for them, what they find in the museum, and maybe also to our mutual satisfaction. There's a very diverse audience; not just generational, but what Jen calls the global majority. From the people who live around the four boroughs that touch Stratford, I think they seemed already at ease, and to treat the building as part of the extension of the public space. And that's very satisfactory.  

Yes, and what I've really observed is that this has been coming for a long time, right, David? The Olympic legacy was discussed before even this project was conceived of. I think people in East London have maybe heard the rhetoric for a long time. And so, to be in something that has been designed specifically for and with them, the sense of pride - and I see people emotionally moved that this has become manifest. That's what I've observed. So, I think the fact that we have achieved it, and it is open, and the East Bank as a wider kind of cultural and creative district has actually been made manifest is what's eliciting some of that response from, as John says, the constituents, particularly in the four Olympic boroughs. 

It does seem a long time ago since this area was called Olympicopolis, and now East Bank, obviously over a decade since the Olympics. I'm interested in the notion of place, and when a place 'becomes' a place.  The last time I visited, actually, it was to interview some people connected to East Bank. And it did strike me walking around the place, that it did have that feeling of being an everyday place. What are your observations about that? 

Jen McLachlan  

From my perspective I delivered the first cultural organisation in the Olympic Park, which was Studio Wayne McGregor. I'm actually at Storehouse today, so in the very building that Storehouse is in. So, I've watched, and we were part of those early conversations about Olympicopolis, right back from 2011 with Boris [Johnson] and George [Osborne]. So, for me, the East Bank and certainly, the completion of the museum, is more of a culmination.  I've worked here and had my son play here for the last decade. So that sense of place has been here for me for a really long time. But the East Bank, and V&A's museum, feels like a real combination of that, the kind of final cherry on the cake, really. 

John? 

Well, the way I saw our project, our overall East Bank project, was to bring the urban edge closer to the park, because I think the park is a beautiful legacy of the London Olympics, the landscape and setting of the park. And by urbanising the river edge along in extension with the existing Aquatic Centre, I really wanted that feeling of when you talk about place, you know that the city would be right there, fringing the park. And so, one of the aspects that ties that together, maybe two aspects that tie that together, are, of course, the step terrace landscape, where you see all the students sitting out and all the passers-by sitting out. But then from the building design point of view, it is this kind of common cord that runs through the buildings along the East Bank; that their foyers become living rooms that open onto the public ground. I mean dramatically in the case of the V&A, where it effectively has its own town square to open its doors to, and that that square is so connected by its own bridge to the park. So, yes, it has a feeling of local now, which when we arrived at the place, it was certainly lacking because it was very wide open and very indistinct, if you like. So, I think that when you're talking about that sense of place, I think it's something to do with the way the buildings open their doors to the public space, and the way the public space relates to the park. 

And in that sense, did you find yourself re-imagining what a museum is today, as a sort of open meeting place? 

Yes. Well, I know what a museum is not! (laughs). A museum is not a silent box on top of a flight of stairs with a pediment on the top of it, with an aura of exclusion. We've tried to make a museum much more of a welcoming house than that. And I think the way people use the museum, enter the museum without fretting about whether they should be there or not, a feeling that the museum is invitational. What we were trying to do in our architectural design was to try to extend that feeling of threshold, not just at the door of the museum, but right throughout the journey through the museum. So, in a way, when you're inside the museum, you still feel that you're on the public pavement, somehow. And when you're outside, you feel that you're being drawn inwards by the open door invitation of the architecture for the museum. So: there's a sort of ambiguity about when you're in and when you're out. I think that part of it, the kind of street-like analogy, or the climbing path analogy, seems to give the building a civic characteristic, without it being in any way institutional, monumental. 

Jen, did that follow through to Storehouse as a very similar concept, or slightly different? 

Jen McLachlan  

No, they're two very different concepts. They've got the same vision in terms of celebration of makers and making and creativity, but it's of course made manifest from the exterior of East Museum, whereas at Storehouse there is no exterior architecture. It's all internal in relation to the storage facility. So: same vision, same audience focus, but no, completely different in terms of the architectural brief. And it was really important to us that the museum itself was distinctive. It was bold. It had an identity of its own. It was an object. It was a piece of craft in its own right. That was really important to us. But also, just to pick up on John's comment about it being invitational in relation to audiences, it's also really invitational in relation to designers and artists as well. So, although we've worked with four design practices within O’Donnell + Tuomey’s amazing framework and canvas that they've created so far, the potential and the opportunity for more designers and more artists to lean into that canvas over decades to come is just still ripe with possibilities. So that invitation is there for artists and designers and creatives of the future as well. 

Yes - in a way, we had our own little test sample of that adaptability, because we had to design a building that could accept all kinds of incoming design ideas, and was built for the long journey of transition that will happen in the future history of the museum. But then we got commissioned ourselves by the V&A to make the café. So, we had to change our hats and say, “Okay, now, how do we adapt the space that we're given to make a good café?” And that was an interesting kind of test for ourselves; to imagine, to be in the position of working within our own building, but making a distinctive identity and partnership with Jikoni, who I think, have taken a really positive attitude towards the purpose and character of their café. So, we're sort of (laughs) a kind of test case for our own proposition by finding ourselves working inside on that. 

Could you talk a little about the influences and inspirations, including the Balenciaga X-Ray, just for a moment, just to give a picture of those early thoughts on the building’s shape, as it were? 

If you wouldn't mind, I would just go back a little bit further than that, because it started with the idea of having a building that had a very strong identity, very strong presence, and, if you like, a sense of permanence about it. We wanted something that spoke to the kind of English tradition in architecture of an elaborated surface like you find in stone buildings, like in the Bodleian in Oxford, or, you know, a kind of ribbed building. We knew that. We had that in mind. But we didn't know how to do it! (laughs) And then I think what happened was that we had a number of steps, certainly deliberate - I'm aware of making conscious steps into the design. One was to think of the building wearing a protective jacket; the idea that it was clothed in something that gave it its identity but also gave it a kind of freedom within that identity, like the feeling you get when you put a jacket on. And then we were working on that idea of the space between the fabric and the form, between the body and the fabric, the kind of in-between space. And in the V&A, we saw this exhibition of the designs of Balenciaga, especially his early designs, and how they were structured from the way the garment hangs and falls in folds. So, I started drawing those things. Started trying to draw those things about costume or clothing or protection and I found Balenciaga kind of inspiring from that point of view. In the exhibition at the V&A, there were photographs by Nick Veasey; he works a lot with X-Ray photography. He had X-Rays from these garments, and you could see that behind, and through the X-Ray, you could see this structure that actually was creating the configuration, the form. So having looked at that at the V&A, I came back to the studio here and said, "All right, let's change the way we draw this building. Let's always draw it in X-Ray". So that even the engineering, even the services distribution, even the structure, every part of it is part so this isn't a jacket that's thrown over something, that doesn't know it's clothed enough.  That thing becomes one thing - from the external, right through to the mechanical services are all working to the same anatomical diagram, if you like. So, I found – as I often find – if you just look sideways for inspiration, it can refresh your working technique. And in this case, looking sideways at the collections in the V&A was really very inspiring. Why wouldn't it be, though? They have the best collection! You can lose yourself in the V&A collection. Which is what I love about going to see the Storehouse. And indeed, in the Storehouse, you can see the very Balenciaga costumes that I started with in the design. 

But I think, John, also, you can feel that sense of the quality and the feel within the building - it is partly down to the fact that, as you say, even if we X-Rayed, it would be the same care taken and internal structuring of couture is taken within all the servicing and all the infrastructure within the building. There's something about that I feel. You feel that quality, and that care. 

Well, I think part of it is the thing you mentioned at the beginning, Jen; a feeling of solidity. You know that when you walk on the stairs, you feel the ground under your feet it's built to last, I think, and detailed to last. You were talking about time, David, but one of the advantages for us in our studio is that we've been able to have the same team of architects working on the project since the beginning, who have really gone into every detail. Our project architects have gone into every detail of what the V&A needed, how the building to operate, how the V&A needed the building to operate, but also this kind of long-term feeling of "This has to last, so let's get it right" 

It's been a long process. Obviously, it's over 10 years working on this. How has it been working together? And what does it feel like when you come to the end of something like this, emotionally? 

(laughs) Well, it is. I don't think you could make work like this unless you were working closely together. If there wasn't the trust. From the beginning, I proposed this precast concrete architecture; we have never done a single precast concrete building! So, it was an experiment, a dive-in for us, but I was surely confident that it was the right thing. But the V&A, having seen samples and having understood the purpose - they didn't just say yes, they needed to know what was going on - but they have been absolutely supportive of every design move. And what that does is it encourages you to commit further, I think. 

So: emotionally, you ask? I think we've come through a really incredibly intense [period]. You said it took a long time, but it never felt like it. There was no slack in it anywhere! It's been a very intense engagement; from the client side, from every participating aspect of it, it's been a very close engagement. And that's special, I think. 

It is really special. And it's unusual, but it's the kind of Holy Grail, isn't it, if you get that kind of perfect collaboration? You know the true meaning of the word collaboration and the true meaning of the word partnership with an architectural practice when you're delivering projects like this. That's hard won, but we found that with the partnership with O’Donnell + Tuomey. And I'm glad that John said about the backing, because that's our job - it is to back the designers and to back the creatives; to make sure that our brief is being held on to with an iron fist, but actually, you trust your designers because they're the experts. And I think we brought our respective strengths to the collaboration and to the partnership. And, yes, it is quite an emotional conclusion for us all, because suddenly, after all that intensity for so long, it's suddenly very immediate. I find that all the time with these cultural capital projects. The end is about a 24-hour, fleeting kind of moment, when then you make it theirs. That's the job. That's the success of it. 

And then there's a beautiful feeling, when you go there on your own. I found that on Thursday, when the building opened its doors to the neighbourhoods and people came in, maybe people who had been involved in the consultations, or people who had tangential relationships with the building, but who were invited in as neighbours on the Thursday. And so, they're people who don't know me, if you know what I mean. I found it kind of beautiful just to disappear into the building and sit on the stairs and watch people go by. And you have this feeling of handover. I love that feeling of: one day you control everything that has to be done, make every decision that has to be made, and the next day, you're invisible, and the real users make it their own. And that's actually a very special feeling, I think. A sort of feeling of a surrender, hand over. 

I've got one last naff question to ask you, which is: if you had a favourite part of the project, a specific point or aspect, where would you take a visitor to, or point to from your perspective? 

Well, I know that there's, inevitably, a lot of attention on the external form and the way it takes light and shadow. And I've put a lot - a lot! - of time into that. But I think for me, the heart of the thing, the actual identifying difference in this project, is the idea of the crust as a thick wall with movement contained within it. So, I would say I would take visitors on a walk, on the stairs, and just to talk about that feeling of being in the in-between. You know, are you inside the building? Are you outside the building? Are you in the museum? Are you on the street? That you can be in all these things. And that kind of thought started for me thinking about what there is in South Kensington, that the staircases in South Kensington are fantastic. I wanted that feeling of generosity; why wouldn't a new building have the same drama or the same characteristic of open circulation, kind of curiosity, inviting circulation? So, I'd say that for me, maybe the crust of the building, the kind of inhabited crust, is what's so different. 

Jen? Same? 

Jen McLachlan  

No, and I don't think it's a naff question! I love this question! No, for me, and it has changed a bit, and I would quite often say the same as John there, but it's a thing that we call the threshold bench, and it sits between JA_Projects’ 

designs for the permanent galleries. It's the interface between that design and O’Donnell + Tuomey's design. It's, one, because of its situation. It's at the upper ground, and it looks all the way down East Bank, through one of our entrances, and then out onto the park. There are all these views within O’Donnell + Tuomey's architecture that you reconnect with this civic park outside. But also, the bench itself is made by this local artist and fabricator, and it's got input from the Carpenter's collective estate, adjacent to the project. And so, for me, it's like an emblem of everything that we've tried to achieve in this building. So: there are makers embedded throughout, and yet you still get that connection throughout, into the park as well. So that's, at the moment, my favourite spot, 

Fantastic, right? I'm going to go and see both as soon as I can! 

Oh great! 

Congratulations both. And thank you so much for your time. 

Thanks. Appreciate it! 

Thanks, Jen! Thanks, David! Bye. 

Bye!