V&A Dundee

The V&A Dundee opened in 2018 as Scotland's first dedicated design museum and instantly gave the city the landmark it had been searching for. The permanent Scottish Design Galleries upstairs tell the story of design in Scotland from the early industrial period to the present — textiles, ceramics, furniture, video games, and the world's first piece of designer denim. The centrepiece is the reconstructed 1907 Charles Rennie Mackintosh Oak Room, dismantled from Miss Cranston's Ingram Street tearooms in Glasgow and painstakingly reassembled here.

Temporary exhibitions are world-class and typically book up at peak times. Entry to the building and the Scottish Design Galleries is free; only the temporary exhibitions are ticketed. The cafe on the ground floor is good. Allow at least two hours, more if there is a major show on.

things to do museum architecture
A story
Architect Kengo Kuma designed the building's twisted, fissured exterior to evoke a Scottish sea cliff. The 2,500 horizontal stone panels — each cast in concrete and weighing up to two tonnes — are angled so the facade appears solid from one direction and full of openings from another. The arched void cut through the middle of the building deliberately frames the RRS Discovery, the city's other waterfront landmark.

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