diamond geezer

Today's the day another building opens in the Olympic Park and the East Bank is three quarters complete.

From left to right
• V&A East, an outpost of the Victoria & Albert Museum, opens today!
• UAL London College of Fashion, opened September 2023
• BBC Music Studios (the new Maida Vale), opening next year
• Sadler's Wells East, a jazzy dance hub, opened January 2025

It's been a very very long time coming.

» 2007: Carpenters Road is a string of grubby car repair shops and trading units

[blogged] [photo]
» 2012: a fortnight's use as the Water Polo Arena, a dismantlable wedge of Olympic pool [photo]
» 2014: Boris announces 'Olympicopolis'; the V&A, UAL and Sadler’s Wells will be involved [blogged]
» 2016: a long thin empty space awaits cultural nirvana (expected completion 2021) [blogged] [photo]
» 2018: Sadiq unveils building designs for the 'East Bank', now with added BBC [blogged] [photo]
» 2020: huge cranes arrive at Stratford Waterfront, UAL kicks off first [photo]

And even that was six years ago. Since then...

During lockdown I watched the shell of V&A East creep up floor by floor. In 2022 I watched cranes swinging panels of angular cladding into place. Since 2023 I've been taking photos of the alien bug exterior while work continued fitting out the interior. In 2024 I got to walk round the exterior for the first time with the remodelling of Carpenters Road substantially complete. Last week I stood beneath the huge statue out front and peered in through the glass door where the cleaners were doing some last-minute tidying up in the shop. And today's it's all systems go.

You'll find V&A East easily enough, there are big circular signs plastered on the ground across the Olympic Park pointing in the right direction. The easiest walk is out of Westfield, head for the Aquatics Centre and turn right at Sadler's Wells. If you're really stumped you can ask a security guard, there are loads of security guards, even first thing on Friday morning there were half a dozen security guards each patrolling their little bit of untrodden waterside. But that's surveillance paranoia for you, even though it's acknowledged "levels of crime on the Park are very low" I guess better safe than sorry. Alternatively you can come by bus, the 241 now stops round the back.

The statue out front is by Thomas J Price, a mixed race artist who grew up on a south London council estate. He specialises in oversized likenesses of young folk in casual get-up, usually black, often clutching a smartphone as is indeed the case here. We've had plenty of TJP's work in East London before, the first in 2013 near Three Mills and recently two anonymous gentlemen outside Hackney Town Hall. They always look good and they're always making a point, that point often being "you don't normally see statues of ordinary people like me". A Place Beyond is his tallest yet at 18 feet, and according to V&A East's director "it symbolises those historically excluded from public monuments, challenging our preconceptions about representation, perception and identity".

There's more art if you look down, a chain of circles atop the paving representing the south Indian decorative tradition of Kolam. These are by Lubna Chowdhary, a Tanzanian-born Pakistani artist, who deliberately spaced out the blobs at a stride's length. They call this piazza Waterfront Square, this because all the imagination was put into the art and definitely not into the naming process. The most overlooked artwork, I'd be willing to bet, is a series of oral histories called Voices of East Bank. It's only mentioned in the corner of a small information board and expects you to surf to the website eastbankvoices.co.uk to listen to 120 themed stories told by local residents. It's a wonderful idea but I reckon the museum would have closed before you got to the end, so it's just as well they've also provided transcripts... and maybe better to peruse a few at home instead.

The waterfront is overlooked by a massive terrace with stepped seating. It looks ridiculously unnecessary out of season but is very well used by all the students at the fashion college nipping out for a chat, vape or bite of food. They must also be the target audience for the row of eateries hidden down below at the riverside, only three of which are as yet occupied, because I doubt most visitors will ever notice them. They all do drinks but only one does ceremonial-grade matcha, only one does detox zinger juices and only one accompanies theirs with a suite of board games. The art down here is a series of fluorescent starburst phrases representing modern Cockney rhyming slang with "modern diasporic influences", so Jollof Rice means nice, S Club 7 means heaven and Clock 'em 'n' Pree means see. My eyes rolled too.

If you've not yet got the hint, East Bank is targeting a younger diverse audience rather than typical culturegoers. That's especially obvious from the theme of the first paid-for exhibition at V&A East which is called The Music is Black: A British Story. It's had excellent reviews, mostly from trusted media who didn't have to fork out £22.50 on a ticket, all augmented by an interactive soundscape on dished-out headphones as you wander round. It's also fully sold out this weekend so don't come specially for that yet. You could instead sample the collection of words and music the BBC's put together on BBC Sounds, because even if their Music Studios aren't opening until next year they can always join in with the collective theme.

Be aware that you don't have to be a student to pop inside UAL and admire the architecture, especially the central staircase, and can also explore whatever exhibition they might have on. Currently it's called Resonant Matter and explores the symbiosis between underground culture, music and fashion, so expect pirate radio and immersive installations, not a neatly arranged collection of dresses. Likewise Sadler's Wells East are getting in on the theme with a black-focused dance programme, most of it ticketed performances but tomorrow as a special treat there's a free and joyful showcase of collective jiggling called the Get Into Dance Festival. When there's no event on, however, Sadler's Wells East is basically just a smart cafe in a foyer with a lot of students upstairs.

The latest addition to East Bank's hospitality offering is V&A East's ground floor cafe, Jikoni, which occupies a prime corner and a strip of outside terrace. Its menu is inspired by rich flavours from immigrant cuisine, as those who've dined in its Marylebone restaurant will be aware, so although they do sausage rolls theirs are filled with spicy Baharat lamb. Meanwhile their toasties contain Goan aubergine achaar with Monty's Cheddar, all yours for 11.5, and if it's soup you want then the sole option is a mug of chicken, turmeric and lemongrass bone broth. It's not what Stratford folk were used to before the Olympic Park sparked mass gentrification, but I expect it'll be packed out.

Indeed I reckon the entire East Bank complex will be brimming over today with inquisitive culture seekers, making this the very worst possible day to look round V&A East's sole two free galleries. I'll probably give it a miss until midweek when all the rubberneckers have thinned out and there's a hope of admiring the architecture and the exhibits rather than weaving through a throng of people. Ian Visits has an excellent and honest review from before the place opened, hence his sightlines were clear and his staircase photos are immaculate. But how amazing to have all this on my doorstep, not just V&A East but the whole of the East Bank, now waiting for just one more building to open.