Using Learning Theory as an
Approach to Creating New
Galleries- A Case Study of the
British Galleries 1500-1900
Christopher Wilk
Victoria and Albert Museum
c.wilk@vam.ac.uk
What is it? activity, Hanoverian Discovery Area
British Galleries 1500-1900
-opened to public November 2001
-3400 square metres of gallery space, 3000 objects
-From the reign of Henry VIII to Queen Victoria, including work by
Hans Holbein, Thomas Chippendale, Josiah Wedgwood and William Morris
What is it? activity, Hanoverian Discovery Area
What is it? activity, Hanoverian Discovery Area
Looking skills
BRITISH GALLERIES TARGET AUDIENCES (overlapping)
Independent learners (no formal curriculum) – 62%
Overseas visitors- 44%
Families - 31%
Specialists (amateur and professional) – 23%
School Groups
Further (16+, vocational) and higher education (18+,
academic)
Ethnic minority groups
Local audience
Source: Beverley Serrell,
1991
Experiential:
seek hidden possibilities, act and test experience
Imaginative:
seek meaning, need social interaction
Common sense: seek usability, draw from sensory experience
Analytical:
seek facts, adapt to experts
Right: Francis Williams,
(The Jamaican Scholar),
artist unknown;
oil on canvas; c.1745
Below: Engraving of Job Ben Solomon and William
Ansah Sessarakoo, 1750
Top: Panelling from Haynes Grange room,
1575
Top right: room from Henrietta Street,
London, 1732
Right: Norfolk House Music Room, London,
1752
Below: Are you a collector?
activity
Below: Are you a collector? activity
Above: Colonel Smith Grasping the Hind
Legs of a Stag (oil on panel), 1640-60
Write a mini-sage activity
Top left: Shawl for British market; pashmina; made
Kashmir, India, 1852
Top right: Shawl with Paisley design; wool;
Scotland, 1851-55
Right: Bow porcelain figure, London, c.1754
Far right: Meissen figure, 1750
Hans Holbein (German/Swiss),
German Merchant in London, 1532
Astronomical Clock made
in London by Francis
Nowe (Neth.), 1588
Anthony van Dyck (Flemish),
Charles I, 1636
Standing cup, made in
London by Thierry
Luchemans (Flemish
or German), 1611-12
Source: Beverley Serrell,
1991
Experiential:
seek hidden possibilities, act and test experience
Imaginative:
seek meaning, need social interaction
Common sense: seek usability, draw from sensory experience
Analytical:
seek facts, adapt to experts
Government School of Design, Somerset
House, London, 1843
Top right: Henry Selous, Opening of the
Great Exhibition, oil on canvas, 1851
Right: South Kensington Museum
Entrance facade, designed by Captain
Fowke, 1865