Inside the ‘House of Dreams’, London’s most colourful museum, dedicated to love, loss & India

On a regular South London street, in a terraced house in East Dulwich you’ll find the House of Dreams, a colourful museum filled with sculpture, poetry, text and art. A lifelong project of the artist and designer Stephen Wright, the museum started taking shape back in 1998 and what started out as something pretty tame, soon manifested into an immersive body of work; visiting now you’ll be hard pressed to find an empty section of wall inside the house, even the garden has been transformed.

Mosaic face in the garden of the House of Dreams

After Stephen’s partner and parents died in quick succession, the house took on a shrine like quality with dedications to loved ones scrawled directly onto the walls. Over the years, as Stephen took inspiration from his travels to India and France, his home became filled with movie posters, Virgin Mary statues, baby doll heads and mannequins. 

A tiny snapshot of the interior

I visited one afternoon with a couple of friends and once inside I was overwhelmed with the the amount of  treasures Stephen had collected, everywhere I looked there was something to read and ponder, or a bright sculpture to admire, the colours throughout the house are incredible, it's truly a fascinating piece of art that reminded me in some respect of the House of Chaos near Lyon, France or the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India. 

Yoga posters and statues

My favourite part aside from the Bollywood posters and trinkets from India are the detailed mosaics outside, you notice them as soon as you arrive, pathways have been transformed into colourful faces and patterns, and walls are studded with slogans, pondering life. 

One of the colourful mosaic pathways

Open only once a month with limited slots available, you can now book tickets to the House of Dreams for January 2021 onwards.