Young V&A

The building housing the Young V&A was originally constructed as a temporary structure for the Great Exhibition of eighteen fifty-one in Hyde Park. Because of its strictly functional iron design, local residents in South Kensington gave it the disparaging nickname of the Brompton Boilers. When officials decided to replace the structure with more permanent architecture in the eighteen sixties, the iron framework was dismantled and transported to its current home in Bethnal Green. It officially reopened here in eighteen seventy-two, beginning its long tenure as a site for public exhibitions in the East End.