My Visit to Kengo Kuma’s V&A Dundee

My visit to V&A Dundee was a gift during my hectic journey to Dundee amidst the whole day of rain and cold. The first sight of the edifice provided me with a very dominating expression in a way it is placed in the Riverside Esplanade beside the RRS Discovery. The building expresses a masculine contemporary body in the semi neoclassical town of Dundee. The first architectural focus for me was the parametric exterior exposed with concrete. The exterior undoubtedly gave me a semi-brutalist vibe or maybe deconstruction at its best. Nonetheless, the softness of the Kengo Kuma’s brilliant design lies within the intellectual perforation in between the mass.

I was listening to the interview of Kengo Kuma in the architecture record podcast. Well, my intention was to know a bit more about the designer in order to relate with V&A Dundee. In the podcast, Kuma was very rational and stated that he loves to explore new materials which are locally sourced. If something that he wants to incorporate deeply in his design, that is the identity of the place. And I was sitting in the middle of the museum and I just knew what he was talking about.

Kuma was assigned to design a museum in Scotland. The first and foremost inspiration he took was from the spectacular Scottish hills. In the case of V&A Dundee, it is the hills of Orkney. Kuma is not the only architect who was inspired by the beauty of Scottish hills. The form and expression of Scot-contours also echo in Enric Miralles’s Scottish Parliament Building and Charles Jencks’s landscape of the Modern Gallery One and Maggie’s Centre. It was very exciting for me to realise that a Japanese architect found local inspiration and implemented to design a contemporary built form. The entire form of the edifice actually changes the definition of small-town Dundee to a metropolis.

The interior is actually quite opposite from the exterior. It is more open and interactive. The silted concrete of the exterior merges with the oak wood of the interior. Fun construction knowledge I gained about the oak wood floor of the museum. The blocks of wood are placed with magnets. So whenever the floors need renovation or maintenance, the woodblocks can be taken out from magnets and fit again. Nice, right?

The exhibitions were perhaps intelligently placed. You will be welcomed with a temporary installation of a maze in the double-height entrance. The enormous staircase will lead you to the second floor from the ground floor (I’m guessing the first floor is the administration section) to visit the permanent exhibition of the Scottish Gallery. This gallery displays the modern accomplishment of Scotland in different sectors, such as history, clothing, posters, architecture, art etc.

There was a temporary exhibition ongoing as well entitled ‘Night Fever.’ This one was pretty cool and for a museum-geek like me, I encountered this theme for the first time. The whole exhibition was displayed about the aesthetical culture of nightclubs and their detailed design. The environment was an amalgamation of a nightclub and museum. I must say the whole atmosphere was designed to provide you with an experience of a discotheque.

I spent almost three hours in the V&A Dundee Museum. And, it was a delightful tour!