Lansbury Micro Museum : Neighbourhood Number Nine

The Lansbury Estate is often held up as a model estate owing to its associations with the 1951 Festival of Britain, and its historic status has framed the means by which it is portrayed and understood. Yet, the estate is not a museum piece or relic, but a real community which continues to change.

The Lansbury Micro Museum explores the importance of the Lansbury Estate as a microcosm of planning ideas for London, revealing its aspirations and confronting its challenges. Amidst uncertainty over current proposals for the redevelopment and regeneration of Lansbury, the museum presents the original ambitions for the estate while considering how life there has changed over time, and how it might change again. What were the external influences that guided the estate’s creation and growth, and will they remain or evolve in the future? By revealing new perspectives on the estate’s history and development, it is hoped that the ideas presented will contribute to, as well as inform and provoke, contemporary debate.

The museum will put forward a three-part exhibition about the local area: from the estate’s conception as an ideal neighbourhood in the aftermath of the Second World War, through the impact of modernisation and industrial change, to the plans for population growth over the next decade. It will consider the many different and often hidden influences that have shaped the area as we know it today; influences that are also affecting many other communities in London and across the UK.

Created by the V&A, the Lansbury Micro Museum will host a series of exhibitions exploring the importance of the Lansbury Estate as a microcosm of planning ideas for London, revealing the original ambitions of its past and considering the aspirations for its future.

Neighbourhood Number Nine, curated by Ruth Lang and Peter Collard is the first exhibition to be held in the Lansbury Micro Museum.

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