David Bowie Centre, a new home for David Bowie’s archive at V&A East Storehouse, will be revealed with a public opening on 13th September, 2025. More than 90,000 items tracing Bowie’s evolution as an innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention are featured.
From private photographs to handwritten lyrics, self-portraits, his own artist’s palette, sketches, costumes, and designs, visitors will be able to get closer than ever before to Bowie’s creative process and legacy. David Bowie Centre is a free-to-access working store and permanent home for Bowie’s archive.
Davie Bowie Centre will feature an exclusive guest-curated display by multi award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie-collaborator, Nile Rodgers, and Brit Award-winning indie rock band, The Last Dinner Party. These intimate selections from Bowie’s archive offer new perspectives on one of the most iconic creatives of all time and sit alongside a series of other mini curated displays and installations exploring Bowie’s creative legacy and lasting influence.
Bowie’s archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, and Warner Music Group.
Nile Rodgers, who produced Bowie’s hugely successful single and 1983 album, Let’s Dance, as well as 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide. He has curated items reflecting what he calls his and Bowie’s shared ‘love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.’
Rodgers’ selections include: A bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for the Let’s Dance album; Chuck Pulin photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Let’s Dance in New York; Personal correspondence between Bowie and Rodgers about the 1993 Black Tie White Noise album; Peter Gabriel images of the recording sessions with backing vocalists Fonzi Thorton, Tawatha Agee, Curtis King Jr, Denis Collins, Brenda White-King, Maryl Epps, Frank Simms, George Simms, David Spinner, Lamya Al-Mughiery and Connie Petruk recording Black Tie White Noise.
My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding. Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.” Nile Rodgers
Brit award-winning band The Last Dinner Party draw inspiration from their shared love for Bowie. They have selected objects mostly from the 1970s that illustrate how Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists to ‘stand up for themselves and their music’ and ‘steal and reinterpret’ to create something unique. Their selection includes: Mick Rock photos showing Bowie in intimate recording studio moments; Bowie’s elaborate handwritten lyrics for ‘Win’ from the 1974 album Young Americans; Writings and set lists for the Station to Station tour, aka Isolar – 1976 Tour; Bowie’s Electronic Music Studios (EMS) synthesiser user manual. The ‘suitcase synth’ was used on the albums Low, Heroes and Lodger, the so-called ‘Berlin’ trilogy.
Watch The Last Dinner Party on Bowie’s influences and their new discoveries:
Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland, Abigail Morris, Aurora Nishevci and Emily
Roberts of The Last Dinner Party, said:
David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves. Bowie is a constant source of inspiration to us. When we first started developing ideas for TLDP, we took a similar approach to Bowie developing his ‘Station to Station’ album – we had a notebook and would write words we wanted to associate with the band. It was such a thrill to explore Bowie’s archive, and see first-hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that’s really important to us in our work too.”
Access to the David Bowie Centre is free and ticketed, with tickets released here later in the year.
