The V&A’s restructuring plans are baffling, disturbing and wrong

These are challenging times for all cultural institutions, not least for the Victoria & Albert Museum and for its director Tristram Hunt. The museum was riding high at the start of 2020 with strikingly successful exhibitions, record attendances and the ongoing realisation of the ambitious plans put in place by Martin Roth, Hunt’s predecessor – with branch museums in Shenzhen, in Dundee, and in East London, where a new museum will open together with a state-of-the-art Collections and Research Centre.