The new 17th­- and 18th-century European Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum open this month. The lead curator Lesley Miller explains the hard decisions involved in making displays.

Why did the European Galleries need to be refurbished? How are the spaces different now?

The galleries were last refurbished in 1972 and in the intervening 40 years they had fallen below the standard you would expect, both curatorially and in terms of access. In the 1970s, they did a big build within the space and brought the ceilings down (some of that was to make space for air conditioning) and blocked out the windows.