The London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is pleased to announce that David Bickle will join the Museum in August 2015 as Director of Design, Exhibitions and FuturePlan.An essential role within the V&A’s senior management team, David will be responsible for the care and future development of the V&A’s buildings, as well as the presentation of all of the Museum’s permanent collections and exhibitions, an area the V&A has become renowned through exhibitions such as Hollywood Costume, David Bowie is and Alexander McQueen:Savage Beauty.

David joins the V&A at an exciting moment, with the construction of the Exhibition Road Building Project continuing apace, a new phase of FuturePlan for South Kensington and the Museum of Childhood in development, and with significant developments on the horizon in Dundee, at Olympicopolis and the new Shekou Design Museum in China.

Tim Reeve, V&A Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer, said: “We are delighted to have found someone of David’s calibre and experience to fill such an important and prestigious role at the V&A. He is highly respected in the architectural and design community, and will bring with him the excellent standards, creativity and vision that the V&A has always demanded as the world’s leading museum of art and design.”

David Bickle said: “The V&A is a beguiling institution that has slowly crept up and stolen my heart. An affair that started with the Boilerhouse Gallery that I visited as a student and more recently with 'Savage Beauty' that presents Alexander McQueen's breath- taking body of work. It's a remarkable opportunity for me to join the Museum at a time of incredible change; a point at which I can help shape its future in a rapidly changing digital world; continue the legacy of commissioning great architecture, exhibitions and design and to be a custodian of its core values. It is my intention to create thoughtful, immersive and interactive environments for others to be captivated, educated and inspired by the Museum’s treasures.”

David is a senior partner at Hawkins\Brown Architects, where he has worked for 21 years. During this time he has designed and led many award-winning projects, worked with a vast array of creative practitioners and conceived a think tank ‘&/also’ that uses speculative and project-based research in a quest for innovation. David has delivered the sensitive re-development of the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, the Grade II listed Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden, and led the regeneration of the Park Hill estate in Sheffield. He is currently working on the design and delivery of ‘Here East’, the repurposing of the former Press, Media and Broadcast Centres within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, to create a new digital neighbourhood for London.

David is regularly invited to give lectures all over the world, including at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, to the Association of Architects in Stockholm and at CIVA in Belgium. He has taught and is a visiting critic at a number of universities, most notably the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. David is an external examiner for the Masters Programme of Architecture at the University of the Creative Arts 2015-2020. He regularly writes for the architectural press, and has sat on many judging panels including for the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, World Architecture News 2015, and the Association of Illustrators Illustration Awards 2013. David was chair of the 2014 RIBA Awards for the Yorkshire region and for the RIBA Forgotten Spaces competition in Sheffield. He is a Board Member of Tannery Arts, a Patron and Advisory Board Member of the Drawing Room, a Board Member of Oily Cart and part of the editorial board of the Art and Architecture Journal. 

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