Exhibition Road


Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington, London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.

Overview

The road gets its name from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was held just inside Hyde Park at the northern end of the road. After the central road in the area, Queen's Gate, it is the second thoroughfare in what was once Albertopolis.
It provides access to many nationally significant institutions, including:
A design competition for plans of how to improve the street's design to reflect its cultural importance was held in 2003 by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The competition was won by the architectural firm Dixon Jones for a shared space scheme for the road and surrounding streets which would give pedestrians greater priority whilst still allow some vehicular traffic at a reduced speed.
The project also aimed to improve the artistic and architectural merit of the streetscape. The scheme was completed ahead of the 2012 London Olympics. Over the decade since the revised streetscape was completed, there has been one major incident involving a minibus and anecdotal reports criticising the design.