V&A to get its Spiral in £150m revamp

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is to be transformed under a £150m plan to make it easier for visitors to use.

The collection of fine and decorative art will be re-arranged and reinterpreted and parts of the building will be changed, with the original Victorian architecture restored. The 1860s inner garden – often missed by visitors – will become the new centre of the museum. The project will start this year and take a decade to complete.

Mark Jones, who took over as director last year when he moved from the National Museums of Scotland, said yesterday: "The V&A is a big, unruly complex of buildings and it presents some difficulties, but our plan will make the museum more enjoyable and easier to understand. We want to refocus the museum on the garden and galleries around it."

Mr Jones is putting his stamp on a plan developed by senior curators at the museum over two decades, but never made public. The V&A, which stretches over 12 acres, has long been criticised for being difficult to navigate.

The new museum will have galleries around the garden, forming a cloister.

Another key part of the new look will be Daniel Liebeskind's controversial £75m capital S spiral, a modernist, uncoiling building which will house contemporary works.

The project will be overseen by the Czech architect Eva Jiricna. Mr Jones said the V&A would devote a third of its grant in aid each year to the project and was confident of raising the rest from the National Lottery and private funding.