Did you know that among the many museums that are relaunching their business after the long period of forced "silence", there is one that vintage enthusiasts will not be able to help but note on the agenda of the next inspirational places to visit? This is the Museum of the Home in London, a destination where it is possible to reflect on the concept of the home through carefully set up spaces, objects, furnishings and photographic documentation based on real life stories. A London destination that deserves to be added to the classic tourist circuits, this museum is housed in an 18th century structure that was a hospice until the early 20th century, set in a large garden in the heart of the East End.

What is home really? Primarily understood as our living space, this word can also mean the idea, or the aspiration to a state of mind that goes beyond the physical place, to evoke a feeling of security, comfort, inner tranquility. This is why we have included the Museum of the Home in the hit parade of places to visit next season: because what strikes us about this place, in addition to the interest aroused by the objects on display, is the spirit with which the exhibition spaces are approached from a curatorial point of view.

Reopened in June following three years of redevelopment, the Museum of the Home offers visitors the new Home Galleries, spaces that, through interactive elements aimed at involving, exhibit a mix of contemporary and ancient stories, bringing together domestic objects, works from different eras, photographs and oral stories. A dive into history that has made us understand once again how much the evolution of our spaces and the elements that inhabit them are closely linked to the evolution of cultures and their mix over the centuries.

From an educational point of view, the museum proposes the division by type of room with its evolutions through the ages: the "Rooms Through Time" lead from a 17th century room, passing through Georgian living rooms to a loft-style apartment in 1998. From the entrance to the living room, from the parlor to the drawing room to the kitchen, the analysis of the house starts from original and amusing points of view. For example, what look could a 70s room inhabited by an Afro-Caribbean family who arrived in England during the migration phenomenon in the United Kingdom in the mid-2oth century? Delving into this story, from cult furniture such as radiograms to embroidered crochet doilies on formica tables, from religious images that decorate the upholstery together with old family photographs taken at weddings and special occasions, to souvenirs brought from trips to city churches of the sea, it will be discovered that in this room, after dinner on any Saturday night, guys will reach their room to listen to their favorite reggae music, before going out to dance in the Dalston neighborhood. On Sundays, however, everyone will get up early to go to church, and after the ceremony guests will be welcomed home for rice and peas with stewed chicken and a glass of Caribbean soft drink Mauby, while listening to the notes of American country music coming from the radiogram.

Among thoughts that emerge from the spaces, it is interesting to focus on the environment dedicated to the kitchen: if in the past for bourgeois and aristocratic families this room was a work room in which disorder became order, a small food factory better to be kept hidden, in the contemporary home, on the other hand, the kitchen becomes a meeting place, a room to show, in which to chat or work on a laptop. Table Talk, the last space in the row of galleries placed on the lower floor of the museum, interacts with the visitor by asking him to sit at the table in a stylized kitchen, and to answer — by speaking or writing — the questions that the museum has asked about the house ( eg "How did the lockdown change your home life?" or "Where do you store your ketchup?"). Now we are so looking forward to a trip to London! And you, do you have any vintage destinations to recommend?