Philip L ong – The Director

I first heard about the possibility of a V&A when I was senior curator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. The possibility that it was not just a V&A in Scotland but in Dundee was so exciting. I got involved by being appointed Director in 2011. The prospect of a new museum in Scotland dedicated to design was an irresistible prospect.

It’s an extraordinary project. It’s the first V&A outside London, the first UK design museum outside London, so the biggest responsibility was to develop a suitably ambitious new building and then to develop a new institution from scratch.

The way Dundee has developed a renewed sense of optimism after decades of economic difficulty is so impressive. Who would have thought a post-industrial city of 150,000 people could be the first V&A outside London and in 2014 become UNESCO’s only city of design in the UK?

The V&A Dundee is symbolic of the city’s ambition. The LA Times, New York

Times and Vogue are telling readers that they should go to Dundee. That interest generates tourism, which generates jobs.

The V&A Dundee started as an idea, and was in many ways a blank canvas. It’s been a real privilege to develop a vision for the institution and to begin to formulate what would be in it. I was the first full-time employee, but that tiny team has now grown to about 40 people.

Between 2007 and my arrival in 2011, much had been done so my job was to flesh out the vision. What I feel is most fundamental is to help people understand why design is so important in their everyday lives: it’s the clothes we buy, the cars we drive, the glasses we drink from.

At the heart of that are permanent displays looking at Scotland’s design history. These start with medieval artefacts, and go via the work of Robert Adam and Thomas Telford to that of contemporary fashion designers like Holly Fullton or Bunny Christie the theatre set designer. We are opening with the wonderful exhibition Ocean Liners which looks at the design and style and history of these great vessels which over a century changed the way the world could be experienced and understood.

What shines through in the story of Scotland’s design is an internationalism and constant striving to engage with the wider world that is woven throughout the exhibits. Museums that work do so because they are rooted in the local and we will be no different, but I hope we’re like the V&A on a smaller scale, because the V&A has at its heart a responsibility to British design and creativity but is also international in scope.

Edinburgh born and bred, Philip Long is director of the V&A Dundee.