Dundee V&A

A delightful dahlia garden from my GH window and the full moon over the River Tay promised a perfect day for visiting the Dundee waterfront.

Past the formidable  entrance to the East Cemetery

and looking up to the Dundee Law where, on my last visit, I experienced the magnificent views.

So with my ducks, or at least penguins, lined up I was off through the center of town.  The penguin is found all over this city memorializing the journey of the RRS Discovery to Antartica.

V&A Dundee was designed by renowned award-winning Japanese architects  Kengo Kuma who is also designing the 2020 Tokyo Olympic stadium. It is the jewel of Dundee’s waterfront and just opened last week so even thought I had no planned an east coast trip at this time I really wanted to see the finished product having seen  it under construction on my last visit to Dundee in June 2017.  Unlike the V&A in London this is more a design center than museum as one would call it.  There seems to be a lot of interactive things for kids to do and the exhibits highlight various bits of Scottish design history,

It is a stunning building that people say reflect a ship, iceberg or the east coast cliffs of Scotland depending on the viewer’s eye.

Next to the V&A sits the )Royal Research Ship) RRS Discovery the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain and launched in 1901.  Its first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition.

The inside is no less dramatic than the outside

Lover’s Lace dress by Christopher Kane

Robert Adam designed this chimneypiece

Vivienne Westwood designed this Harris Tweed suit in the mid 1990’s

John Cruickshank created this window for Aberdeen Uni

This massive pop-up book served as the background for the play  The Cheviot, the Stag & the Black Black Oil by John McGrath in the 1970’s and was transported from show to show on a car’s roof.  Covered, one would hope, from any rain.

Design phases of a Jaguar

Dundee born Bruce Talbert designed this cabinet in 1867

An Orkney Chair from the early part of the 2oth century

This Star Wars outfit by Glasgow’s Trisa Biggar  for Padme Amidala was showcased in The Attack of the Clones

Surely the “oak room” originally designed for Miss Kate Cranston’s Willow tearoom is regarded as one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s finest works. It has been in storage for almost 50 years, is the new V&A’s crowning jewel.

Carefully taken apart and flat-packed, the 43ft-high room has lain untouched in a store room at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow.