It is housed in a group of buildings called almshouses originally built on the site in 1714, to provide homes for the widows of ironmongers.
The funding for the project came from Master of the Ironmongers' Company Sir Robert Geffrye, a merchant whose income and subsequent wealth accumulation was linked to exploitative inhumane practices such as slavery and forced labour.
Should anyone wonder why I mention this, it is because this is the reason for the name of the museum to change during the most recent refurbishment and formalised before reopening in 2021. (Though IG has not caught up and you can only tag the old name as location, or the road)
The original building set up were 14 houses, around a large garden that in 1900, after The Shoreditch Metropolitan Council took over the site, saw the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association landscape gardener Fanny Wilkinson redesign.
However, the garden changed when the building became a museum in 1914 under the London County Council's ownership, having the tenants relocated to safer out of town areas a few years earlier.
Because the area had become a hub for the furniture trade, the purpose of the museum was to become a source of inspiration for traders on matters related to furniture and interiors. However, when manufacturers moved away, the focus shifted to an educational one.
In this current iteration, the museum has new galleries where rather than the curated historical contexts the viewer explores the home through people's everyday experiences and as an architect, I find that it is an endless source of knowledge and inspiration.
If you don't know this place, I thoroughly recommend you visit it. (It is next door to the best Vietnamese restaurants in town -my favourite being Song Que Cafe where we have been going some 2009)
