You’ll discover London’s most extraordinary design treasures when you explore museums like the V&A, where your kids can touch 5,000-year-old artifacts, or the Young V&A, where they’ll design their own creations alongside skateboards and dollhouses. The Design Museum’s copper-roofed building houses cutting-edge innovations, while the Museum of the Home shows how families lived through history. From transport posters at Covent Garden to natural masterpieces at the Horniman, each venue transforms learning into an adventure that’ll spark your family’s creative imagination.
- V&A Museum: A World of Design Across 5,000 Years
- Design Museum: Award-Winning Space for Contemporary Creativity
- Young V&A: Interactive Design Adventures in Bethnal Green
- Museum of the Home: Discovering Domestic Life Through the Ages
- William Morris Gallery: Arts & Crafts Movement in a Georgian Setting
- Museum of Brands: Tracing Consumer Culture Through Time
- Science Museum: Innovation and Technology for Future Designers
- Natural History Museum: Nature’s Design Masterclass
- Horniman Museum: Global Design Traditions and Natural Forms
- London Transport Museum: Moving Design Through the Decades
- The Sum Up
V&A Museum: A World of Design Across 5,000 Years
When you step into London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, you’re entering the world’s largest treasure trove of design and decorative arts. With 2.8 million objects spanning 5,000 years, this massive museum covers 145 galleries across 12.5 acres—there’s something amazing around every corner.
You’ll discover incredible collections like 160,000 Asian artworks, stunning ceramics and glass pieces, and fascinating fashion from different eras.
The Design 1900–Now galleries showcase everything from the first iPhone to quirky Salvador Dalí furniture and eco-friendly Adidas trainers made from ocean waste.
Don’t miss the online “Explore the Collections” feature, where you can browse 1.25 million objects digitally.
The museum perfectly blends old and new, making design history accessible and exciting for curious minds of all ages. Best of all, admission is completely free to enter, making this world-class cultural experience accessible to families on any budget.
Design Museum: Award-Winning Space for Contemporary Creativity
While the V&A celebrates design history, London’s Design Museum focuses on what’s happening right now in the creative world. You’ll discover this award-winning space inside a stunning building that was once the Commonwealth Institute.
The museum’s dramatic copper roof soars 25 meters high, creating an incredible tent-like canopy over Holland Park. The innovative double paraboloid curve was redesigned mid-construction by structural engineer James Sutherland, introducing pre-cast concrete beams that provided the necessary strength for this architectural marvel.
Inside, you’ll explore five floors of contemporary creativity arranged around a spectacular atrium with wooden steps that double as seating. The ground floor showcases main exhibitions, while the top floor houses permanent displays.
Your kids will love the hands-on learning spaces and the 200-seat auditorium for special events.
The building itself doubled in size during renovation, giving you plenty of room to discover cutting-edge design innovations.
Young V&A: Interactive Design Adventures in Bethnal Green
Though tucked away in London’s East End, the Young V&A delivers one of the city’s most exciting design experiences for families. This award-winning museum reopened in 2024 with three interactive galleries—Imagine, Play, and Design—specifically created for children up to 14.
You’ll find hands-on workshops, staff demonstrations, and fascinating objects from skateboards to dolls houses. Kids can explore the amphitheatre-style stage in the Imagine area or get creative in the Open Studio. The museum’s co-designed approach means children helped shape these spaces.
The museum houses the largest collection of childhood-related objects in the UK, making it a treasure trove for young visitors to discover.
Located on Cambridge Heath Road, it’s just minutes from Bethnal Green tube station.
Entry’s completely free, and you’ll typically spend 1-2 hours exploring. Don’t miss the sensory areas and interactive displays that build creative confidence through play.
Museum of the Home: Discovering Domestic Life Through the Ages
Just a short walk from the Young V&A, you’ll discover another design gem that tells the story of how families have lived for centuries. The Museum of the Home takes you on a fascinating journey through 400 years of domestic life in its “Rooms Through Time” exhibition.
You’ll peek into authentic period rooms, from a 1600s parlour to a 1998 Shoreditch loft apartment, seeing how furniture, decorations, and family life have evolved.
Your kids will love exploring the Victorian parlour and Arts & Crafts drawing room, spotting differences between past and present homes. The museum is housed in beautiful Grade I-listed 18th-century almshouses that add to the historical atmosphere of your visit. Don’t miss the beautiful period gardens showcasing historical garden styles.
With free admission, daily tours, and family workshops, it’s perfect for design-loving families wanting to understand how homes reflect the people who live in them.
William Morris Gallery: Arts & Crafts Movement in a Georgian Setting
A short journey to Walthamstaw takes you to the beautiful Georgian home where William Morris spent his teenage years, now transformed into the world’s only gallery dedicated to this influential designer. You’ll explore nine themed rooms showcasing Morris’s incredible talents – from stunning stained glass and hand-printed wallpapers to his famous Kelmscott Press books.
Kids love “The Workshop” section, where they can see how tapestries and furniture were crafted by hand. Don’t miss the interactive displays that let you try pattern design yourself!
The gallery’s free entry and award-winning exhibitions make it perfect for families. Audio guides are available to enhance your exploration of Morris’s life and work. Finish your visit in the delightful tea-room surrounded by Lloyd Park‘s peaceful grounds.
Museum of Brands: Tracing Consumer Culture Through Time
From the handcrafted beauty of William Morris’s designs, you’ll discover a completely different perspective on design at the Museum of Brands in Notting Hill. Founded by collector Robert Opie, this unique museum houses over 12,000 items tracing 200+ years of consumer culture evolution.
The main attraction is the Time Tunnel—a chronological corridor where you’ll walk from Victorian times to today. Kids will love spotting familiar brands like cereal boxes, toy packaging, and crisp packets they recognize. The displays cleverly connect everyday items with major historical events like wars and moon landings.
Your family can explore decade-by-decade changes in advertising, packaging design, and shopping habits. The museum offers engaging educational workshops for children as young as five, featuring hands-on activities like the Smoothie Lab where kids create their own recipes, packaging, and marketing strategies. This compact museum takes about an hour to visit, costs under £10, and perfectly demonstrates how design shapes our daily lives through consumer products.
Science Museum: Innovation and Technology for Future Designers
While the Museum of Brands shows how design influences what we buy, the Science Museum in South Kensington reveals how engineering creates the technologies that’ll shape your future. Head to the Engineers Gallery on Level 1, where over 70 incredible objects tell stories of world-changing innovations.
You’ll see the CMR ‘Versus’ surgical robot that revolutionizes healthcare, the world’s first digital colour camera, and wing models from Concorde’s development. Your kids can explore how engineers solve problems through four fascinating sections: Bodies, Lives, Connections, and Creating.
The Ventura CPAP device, designed in just 100 hours during COVID-19, shows how quickly engineers respond to crises. The gallery celebrates 60 engineers from diverse industries like farming, fashion, robotics, and medicine. Best of all, entry’s free with advance booking!
Natural History Museum: Nature’s Design Masterclass
Just steps away from the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum transforms into your family’s ultimate design masterclass, where nature’s 4.5-billion-year creative process unfolds before your eyes. You’ll gasp at the 25-meter blue whale skeleton suspended overhead in Hintze Hall, while kids marvel at ornate terracotta tiles featuring extinct and living creatures adorning Alfred Waterhouse’s cathedral-like architecture.
Navigate the color-coded zones with ease – Red Zone showcases Earth’s geological treasures, Blue Zone explores life’s diversity through dinosaurs and mammals, while Green Zone reveals nature’s smallest designers in Creepy Crawlies. This world-renowned institution serves as a navigational aid for exploring the connections between different natural phenomena and design principles throughout history.
Don’t miss the Treasures Gallery’s 22 spectacular objects spanning billions of years, including actual Moon rock. The Interactive Restless Surface gallery lets kids experience how wind and water sculpt our planet’s ever-changing design.
Horniman Museum: Global Design Traditions and Natural Forms
Tucked away in Forest Hill, the Horniman Museum offers your design-loving family an extraordinary journey through global creativity, where over 350,000 objects from five continents reveal how cultures worldwide have solved life’s challenges through art, craftsmanship, and innovation.
Your kids will love the interactive video talking heads at the entrance and the African Encounter’s 55-inch screen recreating Lagos street scenes.
The World Gallery showcases brilliant design solutions from America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, while the musical instrument collection demonstrates how sound and form unite across cultures. The museum’s founder Frederick John Horniman had ambitious intentions to “bring the world to Forest Hill,” creating an immersive experience that connects people, ideas, and objects through cutting-edge video, audio, and interactive media.
Don’t miss the stunning clocktower’s Arts and Crafts architecture and the ornate Victorian conservatory.
Best of all? Entry’s completely free for families!
London Transport Museum: Moving Design Through the Decades
Right in the heart of Covent Garden’s bustling piazza, the London Transport Museum transforms your family’s understanding of design through two centuries of ingenious transportation solutions. You’ll discover how London’s iconic red buses, underground trains, and street signs evolved from practical needs into beloved design classics.
Your kids can climb aboard the first electric underground train from 1890 and explore vintage double-deckers.
The museum’s famous poster collection showcases 15,000 stunning artworks that turned everyday travel into visual adventures. You’ll find everything from elegant Victorian maps to bold modern graphics.
Don’t miss the 2,000 colorful uniforms showing how worker fashion changed through decades. The museum’s impressive collection also includes historic trolleybuses and trams that showcase London’s diverse transport heritage.
With hands-on exhibits and family-friendly activities, this award-winning museum makes design history accessible and exciting for all ages.
The Sum Up
You’ve got nine amazing museums waiting to spark your family’s creativity! Each one offers hands-on activities that’ll get your kids thinking like designers. Don’t try to visit them all in one trip – you’ll wear everyone out! Instead, pick two or three that match your children’s interests. Pack snacks, comfortable shoes, and maybe a sketchbook. London’s design treasures aren’t going anywhere, so take your time and enjoy discovering them together!
