Listen to article
Narrated by James Marriott
At the V&A Dundee’s new exhibition, concrete lumps have been elevated to museum status. Stories from the Building unpicks how the Kengo Kuma creation came to be; we learn the V&A Dundee has no straight external walls and is made up of two structures shaped like upside-down pyramids.
According to the exhibition notes, the pyramids are separate on the ground floor and twist to meet each other further up. This meeting point forms a tunnel, “creating a frame and a route through which the city and the river are reconnected”.
You could say that the V&A Dundee has connected with much more than just the river. Dundee now stands among Scotland’s big cultural hitters, with a new identity forged from those deliberately wonky walls.
Dundonians have another contemporary building to be proud of. For folk like me, who live in (or in my case just outside) the city, there is a sense of progress, of moving forward, which I never felt from the built environment of my previous base in Glasgow.
There is also something special about moving forward through the V&A Dundee. Movement evoked by that huge wave of a staircase. Movement under the 57 sun pipes (a form of tubular skylight) in the roof, which bring in natural light and reduce energy usage. Movement over the wooden flooring and its magnetic backing, which can be clicked in and out easily as exhibits change.
It is the same at my other favourite museums: Somerset House in London, for instance, whose central courtyard allows the building to come at you from all sides before you reach the front door. The blurring of walls and garden at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, ideal for site-specific, alfresco works. Each building speaks volumes about whom it is meant to serve. Each tells you a story about the place it is located.
When the V&A Dundee opened in 2018 it declared itself a “living room for the city”. I always thought that meant something similar to the living room in my house — a place to slob in my pyjamas watching True Detective.
But its recent fifth birthday celebrations changed my mind. The itinerary was family-friendly and accessible without dumbing art down. Not, then, a living room, but a room that is living.
Friends who attended said the anniversary weekend gave Dundee vibrancy. It was the same when the Art Night festival came to town in the summer — the first time the festival had left London. Of course the V&A Dundee had something to do with that.
Stories from the Building compounds all these feelings of new Dundee. When museums get their relationship with the city right, it becomes the catalyst for much greater things. As it does here.
On launch day I watched a school group buzz over those lumps of concrete. To have the museum in its component parts explained decodes the final piece of the puzzle.
Neither art nor architecture acts as gatekeeper, more a tunnel through which to pass. When a building is truly for people it is happy to share its secrets.
@palebackwriter
© Times Media Limited 2023.
Registered in England No. 894646. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF.
