September opening date for Dundee’s £80m V&A museum
Jan 18, 2018
in News Tags: BAM, Dundee, Kengo Kuma, V&A at Dundee
Architect Kengo Kuma during a visit to the V&A Museum last year
Dundee’s £80.1 million V&A Museum of Design will open its doors to the public for the first time on September 15, it was revealed today.
Designed by Kengo Kuma, the Japanese architect who also designed the Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium, and being developed by BAM Construction, the project is only the second V&A museum anywhere outside of London.
Since construction started in April 2015, key milestones achieved include the completion of a coffer dam which enabled the foundation construction for the part of the building that will sit out over the Tay, groundworks on the former reclaimed dock site, piling for the ground source heating system and remodelling of the river wall.
Kengo Kuma visited the project in October, shortly after the removal of the coffer dam, as he saw his vision inspired by Scotland’s cliffs revealed for the first time.
The museum’s first visiting exhibition from the V&A London will be Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, which explores the design of some of the world’s most famous ships including The Titanic, Normandie, the Queen Mary and the Canberra.
???V&A Dundee will open on Saturday 15 September??? Get it in your diary!
?https://t.co/lnBzcENnwL #VADundee pic.twitter.com/SNEtMVnszs
— V&A Dundee (@VADundee) January 18, 2018
Announcing the opening date this morning, V&A Dundee director, Philip Long, said: “After many years of planning for V&A Dundee, we are absolutely thrilled to announce the date of the new museum’s opening.
“In just eight months we will be opening the doors and welcoming our first visitors. V&A Dundee is set to be a vital new cultural organisation for Dundee, the UK and beyond, helping to change understanding of just how important design and creativity are to people’s lives. We are enormously grateful to all our supporters for helping to make this happen.
“V&A Dundee brings something new to Scotland. It is the country’s first museum dedicated to design, which visitors will be able to experience and get involved with in very many ways.
“Particularly important is that the new museum enables major V&A exhibitions to be seen more widely by more people across the UK.
“So I am especially excited that part of V&A Dundee’s opening programme will be the breath-taking exhibition Ocean Liners: Speed & Style, the first of many ambitious exhibitions at V&A Dundee that will show how our lives have been – and always will be – shaped by design.”