Section outline

  • Meeting Point: 

    Morning Session: V&A Museum (the closest tube stop is South Kensington), Room 74 on Level 2, at the entrance to the Design 1900–Now display (enter the museum from the main entrance on Cromwell Road, walk through the main shop until you reach the long sculpture gallery; turn left and walk as far as you can until you reach the stairs. Go up the stairs to Level 2. The entrance to the display is right there.). See the V&A's floor plan below, and if you are in any doubt about where to go, please ask a member of staff or visit the information desk at the main entrance: 

    https://www.vam.ac.uk/features/digitalmap/?highlightId=FAC0000_49720&floor=2

    Afternoon session: V&A Cast Courts (Level 0, Room 46A [see above linked map])

    • Essential Reading (ALL ATTACHED BELOW): 

      1. Bruce Robertson, ‘The South Kensington Museum in Context: An Alternative History’, Museum and Society 2, no. 1 (2004): 1–14. 
        • QUESTION: According to Robertson, what things did the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) do to promote education?
      2. Malcolm Baker, ‘The History of the Cast Courts’, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2007. 
        • QUESTION: What was plaster casting used for? And why was it later abandoned?
      3. Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, 1936; repr. in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (London: Fontana, 1973), 211–244.
        • DEFINE: "Aura." What does Benjamin mean by this term? 
        • QUESTION: Does Benjamin see mechanical reproduction (like photography) as an advantage or as a threat to art?


      Further Reading: 

      • M Baker and B Richardson (eds.), A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc/The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1997).
      • Tim Barringer, ‘Re-presenting the Imperial Archive: South Kensington and its Museums’, in Journal of Victorian Culture 3, no 2 (1998), 357-73.
      • Spencer R. Crew and James E. Sims, ‘Locating Authenticity: Fragments of a Dialogue’ in Exhibiting Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, 1991), pp.159-175.
      • Richard Dorment, ‘Weston Cast Court Reopens, V&A: “Better than Ever”’, The Telegraph, 24 November 2014. 
      • Tanya Harrod, ‘The Cast Courts at the V. & A. London’, The Burlington Magazine 127, No. 983 (1985), pp. 110-111. 


    • Robertson - South Kensington Museum in Context URL

      Download PDF from this page.

    • Baker - The History of the Cast Courts URL
    • Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction File
      12.5 MB