V&A DUNDEE
What’s the appeal? London’s Victoria and Albert Museum had been around for some 166 years before this offshoot arrived, to the surprise of some, in the coastal Scottish city of Dundee. The doubters were out of date – by its opening in 2018, Dundee had already certified its status as the UK’s only UNESCO City of Design, thanks largely to its contribution to comics and a booming video games industry. Designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to echo the craggy forms of a cliff, its twin concrete inverted pyramids sit resplendent beside the River Tay as the shining stars of a pacy waterside regeneration project. Inside, the Scottish Design Galleries permanent collection is a tribute to home-grown talent.
What’s on? This season, exhibition ‘Night Fever: Designing Club Culture’ explores the influence of design on the inimitable experience of dancing at Studio 54 or the Haçienda in Manchester, where Ben Kelly famously borrowed the industrial language of hazard stripes and bollards. Developed by the Vitra Design Museum and the ADAM in Brussels, the heady tour also takes in today’s cult clubs, like Berlin’s techno sanctum Berghain.
What’s nearby? Before the seismic arrival of the V&A, there was Dundee Contemporary Arts, with its two contemporary exhibition spaces, cinema, print studio, shop and well-loved café (dca.org.uk), as well as grand gothic revival gallery and museum The McManus, where the emphasis is on fine art and social history (mcmanus.co.uk). The Open/Close street art project offers two city trails taking in large-scale murals and more than 40 painted doors (openclosedundee.co.uk).