V&A Dundee

Last updated

V&A Dundee
Victoria and Albert Museum Logo.svg
The RRS Discovery & the V&A Museum, Dundee.jpg
The museum and RRS Discovery in September 2018
Dundee UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of the V&A Dundee within Dundee
Established15 September 2018 (15 September 2018)
Location1 Riverside Esplanade, Dundee, Scotland
Coordinates 56°27′26.9″N02°58′02.0″W / 56.457472°N 2.967222°W / 56.457472; -2.967222
Type Design museum
Visitors1.7 million (2023)
DirectorLeonie Bell
ChairpersonTim Allan
Architect Kengo Kuma [1]
OwnerDesign Dundee Ltd.
Website www.vam.ac.uk/dundee

V&A Dundee is a design museum in Dundee, Scotland, which opened on 15 September 2018. [2] [3] The V&A Dundee is the first design museum in Scotland and the first Victoria and Albert museum outside London. The V&A Dundee is also the first building in the United Kingdom designed by Kengo Kuma.

Contents

History

The plan for a V&A museum in Dundee originated at the University of Dundee in 2007 when Georgina Follett (then Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design) suggested it to the University Principal, Sir Alan Langlands. Subsequently, Joan Concannon, the university's director of external relations, made a 20-minute pitch to Sir Mark Jones, then director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in which the case for Dundee was made, including its potential as an anchor for the urban regeneration of the waterfront. A design competition took place in 2010 to decide what the museum would look like. The Japanese architect Kengo Kuma won the competition; his design was inspired by the eastern cliff edges of Scotland. [4] [5]

The museum was constructed where the Olympia Leisure Centre stood previously. [6] BAM Construction carried out the construction work beginning in April 2014. The original completion date was 2017 but it was delayed to 2018. During construction a cofferdam was installed to allow the outer wing to expand onto the River Tay and 780 tonnes of pre-cast grey concrete slabs were added to the outside of the building. [7] It cost £80.1 million to complete. [8]

The V&A Dundee opened to the public on 15 September 2018 with international and national press previews taking place beforehand from 13–14 September 2018. The opening was celebrated with a 3D Festival which featured acts such as Primal Scream, Be Charlotte and Lewis Capaldi, along with a light show and a firework display. The opening highlights were broadcast on BBC Two Scotland in a programme hosted by Edith Bowman. The museum attracted 27,201 visitors during its first week and 100,000 in its first three weeks. [9] [10]

The museum was officially opened by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in a private official opening, held on 28 January 2019. [11] On 30 March 2019, the museum achieved its target of 500,000 visitors within a year, six months earlier than expected. [12] The V&A Dundee was due to launch its fourth exhibition, focusing on the fashion of Mary Quant, in early April 2020, but the museum temporarily closed on 18 March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. [13] Over the course of 2020, the V&A Dundee relabelled several of the museum's historical exhibits to better reflect their ties to Scottish involvement in colonialism and slavery. [14]

In September 2023, as part of the museum's fifth anniversary, it was revealed that the V&A Dundee had been visited by 1.7 million people, and that, to date, generated £304 million for the Scottish economy, and £109 million for Dundee's economy. A new permanent exhibition, Stories from the Building, which looks at the background and architecture of the museum, opened on 15 September 2023. In January 2024, it was announced that the V&A Dundee would only host one major exhibition a year, in a cost-cutting exercise. [15]

Features

Exhibition galleries

The exhibition galleries are where the temporary exhibitions are placed.

#ExhibitionDatesRef
1Ocean Liners: Speed and Style15 September 2018 – 24 February 2019
2Video Games: Design/Play/Disrupt20 April 2019 – 8 September 2019
3Hello, Robot: Design Between Human and Machine2 November 2019 – 23 February 2020
4Mary Quant27 August 2020 – 17 January 2021 [16]
5Night Fever: Designing Club Culture1 May 2021 – 9 January 2022 [17]
6Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer5 March 2022 – 4 September 2022 [18]
7Plastic: Remaking Our World29 October 2022 – 5 February 2023
8Tartan1 April 2023 – 14 January 2024

Scottish Design Galleries

The Scottish Design Galleries feature permanent design works from across Scotland. Fields such as fashion, architecture, textiles, comic books, theatre and pantomime are displayed prominently.

Stories from the Building

As part of the fifth anniversary celebrations, a new permanent exhibition, Stories from the Building, opened on the ground floor which features artefacts from the construction, a model of the museum and an interactive display board which features objects that were used in the construction of the museum from 2015.

The Oak Room

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Oak Room was originally completed in 1908 after being commissioned by Catherine Cranston for use as a tearoom on Ingram Street in Glasgow. The 13.5-metre-long double-height room now forms a part of the permanent Scottish Design Gallery at the museum. The Oak Room was restored from over 700 original parts that had been stored by the Glasgow City Council for over 50 years. The room took 16 months to install, and the total cost of the restoration and conservation was £1.3 million (2018). [19] [20]

List of directors

TenureDirector
2018–2020Phillip Long OBE
2020–presentLeonie Bell

Reception

V&A Dundee has received mixed reviews. It had been praised for being Scotland's first design museum and opening interactive and cultural exhibitions such as the Hello Robot exhibition in 2019 and the Tartan exhibition in 2023. The museum was also named as one of the best places to visit in the world by TIME Magazine in 2019. [21] It was the subject in 2019 of a profile in the Sky Arts programme The Art of Architecture . [22]

In the first few months after opening, the museum was also criticised by architects because of the amount of unused space; some called the building "alarming" for elderly visitors, "silly", and "boring". [23]

In April 2022, it was revealed that V&A Dundee was ranked 48th in a list of 112 things to do in Dundee on TripAdvisor, with a lot of the reviews having a negative rating. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victoria and Albert Museum</span> Art museum in London, England

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science Museum, London</span> Museum in Kensington, London

The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Museum of Nature</span> Natural history museum in Ontario, Canada

The Canadian Museum of Nature is a national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, a 18,910-square-metre structure (203,500 sq ft) in Ottawa, Ontario. The museum's administrative offices and scientific centres are housed at a separate location, the Natural Heritage Campus, in Gatineau, Quebec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">State Library Victoria</span> State library in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in the world. It is also Australia's busiest public library and, as of 2023, the third busiest library globally.

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), colloquially referred to as Jeff's Shed, is a group of three adjacent buildings next to the Yarra River in South Wharf, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The venues are owned and operated by the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Turrell</span> American artist known for work with light

James Turrell is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, Roden Crater, a natural cinder cone crater located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, that he is turning into a massive naked-eye observatory; and for his series of skyspaces, enclosed spaces that frame the sky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Gallery of Greater Victoria</span> Art museum in Victoria, Canada

The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) is an art museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in Rockland, Victoria, the museum occupies a 2,474.5 square metres (26,635 sq ft) building complex; made up of the Spencer Mansion, and the Exhibition Galleries. The former building component was built in 1889, while the latter component was erected in the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Alberta Museum</span> History museum in Edmonton, Alberta

The Royal Alberta Museum (RAM) is a museum of human and natural history in Downtown Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, located north of City Hall. The museum is the largest in western Canada with more than 7,600 square metres (82,000 sq ft) exhibition space and 38,900 square metres (419,000 sq ft) in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Cranston</span> Leading figure in the development of tea rooms

Catherine Cranston, widely known as Kate Cranston or Miss Cranston, was a leading figure in the development of tea rooms. She is nowadays chiefly remembered as a major patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald, in Glasgow, Scotland. The name of Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms lives on in reminiscences of Glasgow in its heyday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The McManus</span> Historic building and museum in Dundee, Scotland

The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery and Museum is a Gothic Revival-style building, located in the centre of Dundee, Scotland. The building houses a museum and art gallery with a collection of fine and decorative art as well as a natural history collection. It is protected as a Category A listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kengo Kuma</span> Japanese architect

Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect and emeritus professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings. He is the designer of the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, which was built for the 2020 Summer Olympics. He is married to architect Satoko Shinohara, and they have one son, Taichi, also an architect. He is an advisor for Kitakyushu-city in Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Arch, Dundee</span> Building

The Royal Arch was a structure erected in Dundee, Scotland, between 1849 and 1853 and demolished in 1964. The monumental archway formerly stood over the access to the pier between Earl Grey Dock and King William IV Dock on the city's waterfront.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum</span> Art museum in East Lansing, Michigan, United States

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum is a nonprofit, contemporary art museum designed by Zaha Hadid located on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It opened on November 10, 2012.

Museum architecture has been of increasing importance over the centuries, especially more recently.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musée Albert-Kahn</span> Museum in France

The Musée Albert-Kahn is a departmental museum in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, at 14, rue du Port, including four hectares of gardens, joining landscape scenes of various national traditions. The museum includes historical photographs and films collected by the banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn. Since September 2014, construction works are committed for the extension and the refurbishment of the museum supervised by the architect Kengo Kuma with the cooperation of Ducks Scéno for the construction of another gallery of the exhibition and the renovation of the existing buildings, allowing access to the public in a permanent route.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Roth (museum director)</span>

Martin Roth was a German museum director. He was the director general of the Dresden State Art Collections from 2001 to 2011 and the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK, from 2011 to 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Christian Andersen Museum</span> Museum in Odense, Denmark

The Hans Christian Andersen Museum or H.C. Andersens Odense, is a set of museums/buildings dedicated to the famous author Hans Christian Andersen in Odense, Denmark, some of which, at various times in history, have functioned as the main Odense-based museum on the author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Dundee Liff Hospital</span> Hospital in Angus, Scotland

The Royal Dundee Liff Hospital, previously known as Dundee Lunatic Asylum and Dundee Royal Lunatic Asylum, was a mental health facility originally established in 1812 in Dundee, Scotland. It was originally located in premises in Albert Street Dundee, but later moved out of the town to new buildings in the nearby parish of Liff and Benvie. Buildings at Liff included Greystanes House, which was the main building, and, Gowrie House, which was the private patients' facility. Both Grade B listed buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Event Communications</span> Museum exhibition design firm

Event Communications, or Event, is one of Europe's longest-established and largest museum and visitor attraction design firms; it is headquartered in London.

Tokorozawa Sakura Town is a pop cultural attraction complex in Tokorozawa, Saitama, Japan which opened in the fall of 2020. It is a joint project of the Kadokawa Corporation and the city of Tokorozawa. The development has five main components; the Kadokawa Culture Center, the Da Vinci store, the EJ Anime hotel(closed down in 2022)Japan Pavilion, and the Musashino Reiwa Shrine. It had a partial opening on April 1, 2020, and opened fully on November 6 of the same year.

References

  1. "V&A Dundee: First look inside Kengo Kuma's 'stunning' museum". 12 September 2018.
  2. Moore, Rowan (15 September 2018). "V&A Dundee review – a flawed treasure house on the Tay". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  3. Morkis, Stefan (15 September 2018). "World record smashed as V&A Dundee and 3D Festival draw the crowds on museum's opening weekend". The Courier. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  4. Waite, Richard; Merrick, Jay; Douglas, Mary (12 September 2018). "V&A Dundee: First look inside Kengo Kuma's "stunning" museum". Architects Journal. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  5. Dundee, University of. "V&A Dundee and the University : Stories". University of Dundee. Retrieved 25 September 2018.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. "Museum visitors to be greeted with scene from Olympia's heyday". The National. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  7. "V&A Dundee – BAM Case Study". www.bam.co.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  8. "Dundee's V&A opens its doors". BBC News.
  9. "V&A Dundee welcomes 27,000 in first week". BBC News. 23 September 2018. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  10. "V&A Dundee attracts 100,000 visitors in the space of three weeks" . Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  11. "William and Kate officially open V&A Dundee". BBC News. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  12. "V&A Dundee hits 500,000 visitor milestone". 31 March 2019. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  13. "V&A Dundee · Coronavirus". Victoria and Albert Museum Dundee. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  14. Carrell, Severin (7 January 2021). "Slave trade links of Scotland's Glenfinnan memorial revealed". The Guardian . Guardian Media Group . Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  15. "V&A Dundee to stage just one major exhibition a year under new cost-cutting measures". The Scotsman. 16 January 2024. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
  16. Originally planned to run from 4 April – 6 September; however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the V&A Dundee temporarily closed, with the exhibition moved to later in the year.
  17. "V&A Dundee · Night Fever: Designing Club Culture". Victoria and Albert Museum Dundee. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  18. "V&A Dundee · Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer". Victoria and Albert Museum Dundee. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  19. "The Oak Room". V&A Dundee. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  20. "Charles Rennie Mackintosh – Oak Room". STROMA Films.
  21. "V&A Dundee Is One Of The World's Greatest Places". TIME. 2019.
  22. "The Art of Architecture – S1 – Episode 3". Radio Times . Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  23. Hutcheon, Paul (8 September 2019). "Dundee's £80m museum is "boring" and little more than a "cafe", say experts". The Herald.
  24. Mitib, Ali (17 September 2023). "£80m V&A ranks 48th on things to do in city". ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 17 September 2023.