We saw it some years ago as a much-praised published scheme that was bundled together with the hype of Dundee becoming UNESCO City of Design in 2014; then later, the project was seen as a construction site; now there was the opportunity to visit the building that was finally completed in 2018.
The V&A holds a special place in the world of museums, with that in London holding a celebrated reputation for quality and scholarship in its curated management, with a commitment to being the very best in everything it does. One could say that it has gained an iconic reputation for itself over the years. That the V&A should lend its name to a branch in Dundee meant something good: Dundee was to be blessed with a branch of the solid trunk rooted in South Kensington, London, planted and supported by none other than Prince Albert. One expected a rich and vital experience; a meaningful and informative visit to V&A Dundee that was located on the city's water edge on what was the site of the Olympia Leisure Centre. The architect was Kengo Kuma & Associates.
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The building could be glimpsed from the long, nearly 1.5 mile bridge entry into the city from the south. The massing was darker, greyer, more muted than one remembered from the photographs. The banded bulk sat on the water's edge displaying its grey hues that let the form meld into the shades of the city itself. It did not appear as distinctive or as impressive as it was remembered. Was this the power of the photographic image that, by being appropriately 'shopped,' framed fabricated perceptions and fashioned false memories that forged feigned enthusiasms?
We were booked into a nearby hotel, so, after an early check-in, we had a bite to eat and a little to drink, relaxed after our journey, and then strolled across to the neighbouring striped massing. The surrounding buildings were unremarkable, with the adjacent museum structure, Discovery Point, looking something like a steel-framed, metal-clad Dome of the Rock fit for a cheap seaside entertainment area; and the slick Dundee railway station/hotel opposite seemed to be an exercise in trying to make a grandly curvaceous, civic, landmark statement when one wasn't required.
One could read a boat form into the banded massing that intrigued, a perception highlighted by the dry-docked Captain Scott's RRS Discovery, (that took Scott to Antarctica in 1901-1904), sitting right next to the V&A Dundee. One vessel stood proud and tall with its functional, intertwined rigging; the other was defined by a horizontal stacking balanced with the visual fragility of a Jengo-type pile. As one approached, the louvred forms were discovered to be chunky, wedge-shaped slabs of precast concrete, arranged as sloping forms that simulate a louvred skin, bolted piece by piece to a solid concrete substrate with stainless steel brackets. The weight transformed the anticipated vision of a light, layered, louvred skin into something more massive as the reality was grasped. This was no finely fabricated metal framing of form; here one could see a classical cladding, literally, with cornices, friezes, copings, architraves, and arises all fixed as solid stone would be, only, in this context, the separate slabs had no particular role or identity, and were all applied as anonymous chunks of concrete, giving the place a sense of durability, 'pyramid-like' substance that ironically relied on the quality and resilience of the metal fixings for its impression.
Then, as one drew closer, the fearful question arose: where does one enter? It might be interesting to think about claddings and appearances, but how does one walk into this mass? What particular place does one aim for in order to enter? Such thoughts fill the body with the uncertain fear of disorientation, with there being no clues with any certainty to determine one's environment. This building was an abstract massing and gave no definitive indication of its manner of operation; the reasons for its forms. Looking for the best guess, one gauged two places in the form likely to be entries, and hopefully, blindly, took the closest break in the 'louvres' that just happened to be the correct choice - phew! It felt just like getting Wordle in six. The other guess, which had been assessed as being a likely option for an entry, probably the preferred choice, was later found to be a covered, arched walkway under the form, providing access through to the estuary and around to the further side of the bulky massing which broke away again to create another, apparently private approach into the building. Interior functions have no expression in this amorphous, louvre-clad building, where the distortions of form appeared to be more significant than the identification of any particular function or parts.
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Through the main entry doors, one entered a huge void shaped by the sloping walls that had been seen externally covered with banded concrete slabs. Inside, the cladding theme changed to what looked like veneered panels of particle board, louvred similarly as if to complete the concept less aggressively; to furnish the place more humanely. These interior panels were more like lapped, armadillo scales than banded concrete lintels; but the point was made: the sloping wall was covered with bits bolted on as itemised pieces aligned to clad the surface in a manner similar to the exterior concept - but what was the significance? One read that the intention externally was to replicate the rugged Scottish cliffs, even though the ship image seemed a stronger, more determined reference.# Was this internal panelling something of a cave lining;** or was it a nautical space, all timbered like a ship's interior? Who knows?
Looking at the pieces of concrete banding externally, one could see that there were subtle variations in sizes, in lengths and in depths that gave a slightly uneven finish which seemed to be what natural rock faces should do. The concept also happily accommodated all discrepancies that inevitably would have arisen if perfect alignments had been sought. Just how this seemingly ad hoc variation was managed and achieved is unclear; was it chance or careful planning; what mathematical sets might have been used to achieve this outcome?
As one moved deeper into the building, the signage declared the various functions, as if this needed explanation: there were two levels - Level 0, (why not Ground?), and Level 2 (why not Gallery?): the obvious question remained unresolved and unexplained. A long, low-pitched stair stepped up between these gaping levels along one side of a huge void lined with the leaves of veneered panels. One discovered occasional windows that slotted in between the layers of external slabs giving glimpses of the context: the city and the water. These openings had not been noticed outside. There seemed to be no particular rationale for them other than that they were there from time to time. No particular view, vista, or viewing point appeared to be referenced; they formed no obvious pattern. It looked like something that might be 'interesting' for a designer to do. With the openings being limited in height by the external banding, the windows framed only minute, incomplete portions of Dundee, its buildings, streets, estuary, and sky, leaving one to further wonder about their role other than being clever decoration.
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The ground or entry level comprised this long, slow-climbing stair that reminded one of the Pompideau Centre, along with a lift, a reception counter, a shop, and some service areas. As a background to the shop, one huge sloping wall had been louvred in the timber veneered panels, just, apparently, because it could be. It seemed to be something in the shaping of place that had been left searching for a purpose, but finding nothing to do with its grandeur. Its profile looked to have something to do with the external massing that had no useful role in the ambitions for the interior, and was just there, leaving something awkward to be managed somehow 'architecturally.' Its amphitheatre-like shaping seemed to offer no clues for its use in the scheme of things V&A.
We took the lift up to Level 2 as we wondered more about the mysterious Level 1; was there one? It was not obvious; why was it not referred to? The surprise was that this Level 2 WAS the museum, with gallery spaces, a cafeteria, toilets, and some sundry areas for research and play; there was nothing more. One was surprised, if not disappointed, to discover that the complications of external form could accommodate such an ordinary, simplistic distribution of space across one level as an array of typical rectangular galleries one could expect in London's more traditional V&A building. Moving into this gallery assemblage, one noticed the huge totality of void, sheer emptiness that seemed to overpower everything on display that all worked just too hard to try to fill this huge space with its inadequacies. One felt lost and alone, strangely disorientated in a surplus of vacancy, astonished by the remote distancing of everything. The cantilevered glass, 'look, no handrail,' balustrade around the shop/entry space void, only added to the forbidding sense of unease, and aggravated the nothingness that absorbed the exhibits and dominated one's personal identity, challenging one to act in this diminishment.
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Although divided into named galleries - there were six different spaces of varying sizes - the void persevered, seeping into all nooks and crannies. There seemed to have been a lot of effort put into the attempt to try to fill these areas meaningfully. Were these spaces left over by the self-conscious shaping of the preferred exterior reading? One felt a little overcome with disappointment, having expected V&A density, intensity, and quality. Has London changed too? It is some years since we have been there. Perhaps this emptiness IS the new V&A?
Popping in and out of gallery spaces, one felt that the curator had struggled awkwardly to get a set of themed displays to fill the areas, and had put too much effort into interactive enterprises for both adults and children. One could sense something of a games alley quality with all of the different setups that invited participation: 'Hey, come play with me, and have a fun learning experience!' The exhibits were weirdly distributed into distant arrangements to provide the pretence of a happy fit that was somewhat sadly laughable in its extreme, sparse absurdity. It was not as though huge crowds were to be accommodated, even on this Saturday afternoon, although the place was busy.
It was not until we got to the historic stitching display that we could sense something with the skill and depth one might happily relate to V&A; but this work seemed to be too parochial, being a celebration of Dundee's Dundee. Still, one could admire the enterprise, with the results holding something worthy, but in too much of an excessive void that weakened the display’s content by questioning the authority and relevance of the work.* One now realised how important the art of display is. The V&A could learn a lot from the masterful work of Jean Nouvel by visiting his gallery/museum projects in Paris, Abu Dhabi, and Doha.
Moving on into the Scottish gallery, one again realised that the V&A in Dundee meant only things 'Scottish,' concentrating on local exhibits in the same way as the tartan tourist shops present cultural cliches. This 'national' gallery space had more of the traditional gallery display, being glary and glassy, but it was broad and schematic in its scope, and just too light-on in its depth. It was overambitious, with the cleverness of the display taking over from the providing of information, with some items fixed six metres high, while other items were blurred by reflections, left in the shadows, or cluttered together for convenience. A few items from Orkney and Shetland were bundled together in a box display just as the islands are illustrated as asides on maps of Britain by cartographers. One supposes that the islands were lucky to be there, with Shetland frequently being left off the map to suit the convenience of size and scale. The islands struggle to make the nightly BBC weather map, with everything above Lerwick missing.
There was a C.R. Macintosh space, fitted out with typical dark, Macintosh-detailed timber work that seemed to be a Miss Cranston tearoom reference, complete with coloured, decorative glass inserts, all feeling like something of an oversized/overworked cliché; a Macintosh mock up: the mythic 'Mockintosh' of the tourist shops? The display area was managed by a supervisor who welcomed visitors and offered to answer any questions. We asked about the future of the School of Art, and was told that the display was not the School of Art. Acknowledging this, it was explained to this supervisor that the school in Glasgow had burnt down twice, and one thought a Macintosh expert might know about its future which had seemed to be in the balance. Sadly the 'expert' acknowledged only ever being in Glasgow twice, and knowing nothing of the School of Art. This seemed to sum up the whole Scottish display - truly parochial; but it did have some interesting bits and pieces that were worthy of attention. With a population of just over 150,000 people, Dundee has had a remarkable influence on an unusually diverse variety of interests that is described succinctly as being 'a rich history in jute, jam, and journalism.' The puzzle was: why did the V&A in London not share any of its material with Dundee?
Moving back into the void, we walked across to the cafe for a coffee and sat near one of the few glass walls with a view. One could see the crude lighting wires and ad hoc fittings casually lying fixed to the tops of the concrete louvre slabs. There seemed to be something of a 'grand display' mentality here that had been given more attention and commitment than anything else, even the finesse of getting unseen details neatly resolved: 'out of sight, out of mind' seemed to be the theme of things; a little like Level 1. Was the important issue to get and maintain the Instagram-ready image, come hell or high water?
Sitting in the cafe, one noticed how the 'look, no handrail' triple layered glass balustrades had large Windsor-like chairs with high backs placed next to them so as, so it seemed, to overcome the fear of falling, and to avoid this reality, with this 'nothing' see-through barrier opening up into the triple height void at floor level, and becoming open space just above table level. It looked as though this architecture was all about appearance, not being interested in accommodating or responding to any intimacy of personal experience. Might this characteristic come from its Japanese roots?
And now one noticed how the eye is encouraged to read this 'falling' depth of the entry void with a set of lights eerily rising and falling through this great central space. Again, it seemed to be a place looking for a purpose that, in this case, has been devised to be this quaint, spatially intriguing yo-yo annoyance of an artwork. Might this assessment sum up the building - a poetic form looking for a purpose; trying to accommodate a function? It could very well be so, as the functions one could see accommodated were simplistic, boxed voids stretched over two disparate levels, the entry and gallery levels, all apparently arranged to fit the convenience of the desired external massing with a few rectangles here, and a triangle there: functional necessities, it seems, had to fit the intentions demanded by the external ambitions.
On leaving the upper level, one discovered the architect's bold, energetic, pencil sketch/scribble; was this the inspiration? Is this the Gehry-type approach to design? We had noted Gehry's model for his Maggie's Dundee Cancer Centre in the Scottish gallery display, looking like bits of paper stuck together in an interesting fashion to create spaces waiting to be named.## Was the V&A Dundee building a pencil sketch in real 3D concrete form - a stroke by stroke concrete piecing; MY inspiration in fact, holding the fiction of function as best it can, to become the function of fiction?
Strolling around the mass externally, one discovers folds and twists, and steps, breaks, and slopes that add interest and intrigue, but which cannot be associated with any function other than say, entry. The effort seems to have gone into the making of the form, the cliffs/ship, to create a phantom, ghost-like mass sketched out of precast pieces bolted as bands onto the three dimensional, twisted sloping walls into which rectangular openings had been located.
The great internal voids look like they have been formed by the external profiles that appear to have determined the placements of the main working portions of the building which contain the traditional spaces for galleries, offices, and service areas. Why is this so? Is it a failure on the part of the architect to visualise functions integrally with form? Has the form been generated separately, with the standard plan being plonked in where it might fit: on levels 0 and 2. Is there a level 1? It is all very enigmatic; contrived? Did the architect lack that 3D vision of Wright noted by both Jordy and Alofsin, that could have achieved an 'anatomical' integrity?**
Looking at the mass externally, one remains mesmerised by the illusion. It is an impressive bulk/hulk; but alas, is this good enough? Why are the interiors so mundane; so simplistically resolved; so empty? We read statements by the architect in a display at the entry level that speak of the poetic qualities of the form, but architecture is more than clever expression and the adaptation and allocation of voids to a named purpose. One thinks of the Millennium Dome in London, a slick piece of structure by Richard Rogers that had no defined purpose until roles were assigned to the available shelter with the identified functions made to fit, and with fits made to function. Has this been the V&A Dundee approach too?
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Architecture has a necessity that embraces wholeness with an integrity that sings with the certainty of being right in all ways of seeing; it is never a beautiful tune forced to accommodate a few trite words, or a crass music box playing Beethoven. Fit-outs involved with the reuse of buildings use this adaptive approach that becomes another exercise in the skill of integration because it has an existing building to work with. Scarpa sets the example here in his work in the Castelvecchio; but the claimed poetic or iconic expression of a form overtaking everything, even its very purpose beyond being a memorable mass, causes dislocations that only highlight the fact that functions do have to start having an impact on expressions, and should not just be squeezed into the prettiness of the visual preferences, if architecture is to achieve an integral wholeness and not remain a struggling 'either-or/if only' proposition. Sullivan spoke of this relationship as form following function, AND as function following form. V&A Dundee appears to be form forcing form, holding function only where possible. Here the inspired architectural imagination seems to define everything, even the space available for practical purposes: if too much, and too big, then just too bad; but it looks good?
Experience demands more of things than this because space, place and form all have impacts on being; and this is more than being impressed with a work of MY art that is branded V&A.
There appears to be something austere about this work; something selfishly intellectual that denies even the simple delight of a child balancing along the edge of the pool; or of sitting on the edge with a parent while paddling feet: the pool edge capping is kept low and is shaped to slope inwards, denying any function other than that of a kerb barrier.+ The remainder of the building looks to be likewise singular in intent, seemingly careless of any intimate involvement with users, being there, so it appears, for impressive display alone. One could argue that this is what galleries are for; but the irony is that the gallery displays go overboard trying to accommodate children's activities.
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As we were leaving Dundee, we had another opportunity to see the building in its city context. Yes, it was a pale grey, as ephemeral as the graphite lines of the pencil sketch. The building has been assembled in much the same manner as the drawing - literally line by line; stroke by stroke; piece of concrete by piece of concrete adhered to the mass as a hyphenated cloak; a textured cladding articulated so as to create the desired illusion, leaving its mark like a thumbprint on the city. On viewing the whole in context, one can agree that the work is an eminent success as it sits boldly assured on the Dundee waterfront. From the distance, the more subtle, self-conscious shaping of the assembly becomes obvious, with perhaps just too structured a gesture of triangular gaps providing the fragmentation at the base. As has been noted, the issue is the fit-out which looks as if it has been contrived to be accommodated in the available places formed by the external shaping, whatever the purpose.
Has Gehry changed the way we think about a building, leaving function to fumble its way into an interesting co-existence with preferred appearances, as best it can? Has Hadid exaggerated the extremes of expression so much that now we see nothing but the sheer cheek of admirable, bold forms, and never ask about functions or their forming? One has to remember that Hadid's much-praised, first-built work, the Vitra Fire Station, was found to be impossible to work in, and is now the Vitra Design Museum holding exhibitions and events. So it seems that the V& A Dundee might survive its dislocation, with galleries being one of the most accommodating functions that could be allocated to an interestingly different form; it is just disappointing to discover this discrepancy in a building that seemed to offer more than this experiential gap; more than this apparent discontinuity in intent.
**
William H. Jordy Progressive and Academic Ideals at the turn of the Twentieth Century Oxford New York 1972
p.193
on Froebel's blocks that are said to have been so important for the child/architect:
From the moment the child removed the "gift" of blocks from its box - all fitted together as a simple solid, and meant to be initially perceived as a unity - until the completion of the pattern in which he was required to use all of the blocks, he was to consider the design as an entity. No left-over blocks! No casual spill or meandering chaos such as more permissive kindergartens now condone!
p.194
In his no-nonsense manner, Froebel discouraged random piling, and demanded that the child begin by naming what he intended to build; then even draw a plan of it. So Wright literally obtained the education for which Sullivan called in his Kindergarten Chats. In fact, Wright's block building, weaving, and paper folding, always in the context of nature and the "natural," was doubtless sounder schooling for the would-be architect than Sullivan's more metaphoric appeal to nature. At least Wright realised his architectural vision with a fullness, clarity, and concreteness which Sullivan never attained.
p. 200/201
For Wright, it was a matter of manipulating blocks as three-dimensional structural entities, even though the plan on which he based his manipulation originated as much in formal pattern as in a diagram of functional arrangement. More precisely, Wright never considered functional arrangements apart from the crystalline configuration that they ultimately assumed in plan, nor from the plastic configuration that they ultimately assumed in mass.
The articulation of the building so that each of the major components of the composition asserts its particular identity within the whole, and in a hierarchical relation to it, is comparable to the particulate, yet independent, anatomy of living things. As in the anatomy of organic structures, so in Wright's buildings, the naked anatomy is its own adornment. Where decoration occurs, it is not something added to a pre-existing whole, but an efflorescence from within, as the flower from the stem, or hair from the head.
Anthony Alofsin. Wright and New York The Making of America's Architect Yale 2019
p.2
But he (Wright) had innate gifts: a powerful ability to visualise in three dimensions, skill in drawing, and a critical and curious mind.
It is this integrity in 3D wholeness that appears to be lacking in the V&A Dundee.
##
It is interesting to note the DVD set Architecture, The Complete Box Set, by Ovation, that presents a series of programmes on an array of selected buildings, makes the observation that the top one third of the Bilbao Guggenheim could be removed without having any impact on its function. One wonders about the unnamed voids in the V&A Dundee, and Level 1.
P.S.
Looking through the depiction of V&A Dundee on Google Images, one can see a selection of architecturally framed photographs of the exterior that highlight the extremes of the form in unique wide-angled shots; and, with the interior, a set of contrived images that likewise capture the skewed drama of the entry void from a variety of carefully chosen locations. There is not one photograph of the rectangular galleries that appear to lack any intrigue for the 'lens' eye of the photographer. All interest lies concentrated on the potentials of the quirky form and the unusual, triple-height interior void, creating suggestive images that set the scene for a dual disappointment: the drama of the photograph is rarely sustained by the eye of the passerby; and the very heart of the V&A, the galleries, is discovered to be a set of conventional, rectangular voids that lack the spatial excitement and visual intrigue promised in the photographs.
It seems that Gehry's Guggenheim in Bilbao has set the example; galleries and museums must now be uniquely different, eye-catching, attention-grabbing forms. One can see such an outcome in Nouvel's National Museum of Qatar in Doha. This building has been inspired by the desert rose crystal, and establishes an expression as extreme as Gehry's, but from a more organised inspiration. Just as with the V&A Dundee, the Qatar museum has huge interior spaces shaped randomly by the desired expression, volumes that are sometimes experienced as voids; pure emptiness. It must have been a challenge, but the displays have all been cleverly crafted to nicely fit these spaces and their randomly different profiles formed by the huge, curved, sloping, intersecting crystal disc elements.
Here, in the Qatar museum, the interiors maintain the external inspiration without apology, and present a set of uniquely contorted spaces and bespoke surfaces for the exhibits to adapt to. Large-scale projections and beautifully detailed mountings and placings have all been carefully arranged to fit this crystalline expression, to use its unique properties positively, by skilfully turning opportunities into advantages, and overcoming the schism V&A Dundee has with its identity and display; its exterior and interior; its solids and voids.
#
The challenge with the cliff face analogy was that such locations in Scotland are usually places frequented by nesting seabirds. The V&A Dundee had to be designed to be nesting-bird-free, hence the louvred concrete slabs.
*
A Dundee local advised us that the V&A Dundee was in between major exhibitions, with the large space exhibiting the Dundee sewing projects being used as an interim, ‘infill’ exhibit.
+
note:
- unlike Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Gallery in New York where the edge around the corner garden is at seat height and is used as this.
21 August 2025
FRACTALS
The article on how ‘fractals forever changed math and science’ – see: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fractals-math-science-society-50-years, offers another way of describing the issue with the V&A Dundee. One could say that the building lacks a self-referential template; that its complexity is too linear, reading as a step by step additional composition rather than having the ‘anatomical’ integrity Jordy spoke of, where each of the major components of the composition asserts its particular identity within the whole, and in a hierarchical relation to it . . . As in the anatomy of organic structures . . . [where] the naked anatomy is its own adornment . . . an efflorescence from within, as the flower from the stem.
The V&A Dundee seems to lack an organic order in complexity. It looks like an ‘inspired’ concept that has been rationally and subtlety developed as a set of ‘solutions’ to address the various itemised challenges that have been faced, all while maintaining the idea of the conceptual scribble. The planning highlights the stark contrast between the various contrasting approaches that have been taken with the many parts.
A ‘being at one’ review of the project, (see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/08/being-at-one-dream.html), and the architect’s statement can be seen in https://share.google/XyKN1TitxN4btDIA4.
Some plans, sections, elevations, and detailing along with a set of ‘architectural’ images can be seen in https://arquitecturaviva.com/works/museo-victoria-albert-dundee-7 and https://www.arkitektuel.com/va-dundee/.
One portion of what might be Level 1 can be seen in one section.
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It is interesting to note that the initial proposal had the museum located out in the estuary, not on the edge: see - https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/reports/plan_apps/12-00339-FUL.pdf.
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One wonders about the cliff reference: 'a sea cliff, between the water and the land.' Might it have been an isthmus that was the inspiration? What did the architect envisage on visiting the site before he began designing, (see statement in report noted above), to become excited about referencing some Orkney Island cliffs in the heart of Dundee?
KK The first idea came from a sea cliff in the north of Scotland. Nature is always giving me a hint for new buildings – sometimes caves, sometimes hills – and in this project it was a cliff, which is nature between water and land. In the 20th century, the idea of architecture was to create contrasts with nature, but I’m going in an opposite direction. We try to integrate nature and buildings.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/building-study-kengo-kumas-va-dundee
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6 September 25
NOTE
The review of the Jaguar prototype has some comments that could relate to the V&A Dundee:
wasn’t fully thought through
it presents a number of bold ideas, but none seem fully resolved
looks promising at a distance, but disappointing up close
lacks cohesion
the impression that this is a design where individual elements were created in isolation and stitched together later
the pursuit of boldness without enough attention to proportion, purpose or execution
looks like a rushed patch-up of an inconvenience
tacked on and unresolved
**
On the cave reference concept: one can see the ‘cave’ idea developed beautifully in Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar in Doha, where Koichi Takada Architects has referenced the Cave of Light:
The interior designs of the National Museum of Qatar's gift shops are directly inspired by Dahl Al Misfir (the Cave of Light), a natural cave in Qatar famous for its phosphorescent glow and gypsum crystal formations. Architects Koichi Takada Architects created the shops' cavernous, undulating walls using 40,000 hand-assembled pieces of wood to evoke the sensation of being inside the cave. This design connects visitors to Qatar's natural heritage and complements the museum's external "desert rose" architecture, according to Ateliers Jean Nouvel.
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