V&A museum virtual tour offers glimpse into future on Dundee’s waterfront

By Frank Urquhart
Published on 03/08/2012 00:00

THESE are the first dramatic images from a new video fly-through, offering the public an unprecedented view inside the iconic outpost of the V&A museum on Dundee’s waterfront.

For the first time, members of the public will be able to tour the landmark building, designed by award-winning Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, using a state of the art digital animation first developed for the city’s own booming computer games sector.

The stunning four-minute digital animation, showing how the £45 million landmark building will look both inside and out once it is completed, is to go on display at the Dundee Science Centre.

Preparatory work on the site began earlier this year and the building is scheduled to open in 2015.

The lattice-like structure, reminiscent of a ship’s bow, was the unanimous winner of the international competition for the design of the landmark outpost for the V&A which will form the centrepiece of Dundee’s 
£1 billion waterfront redevelopment.

The new international museum, celebrating the best in Scottish design, will be partly built on a promontory out into the River Tay and will be split over two floors with a mezzanine level, incorporating four galleries and a central atrium flooded with natural light.

The V&A at Dundee is being delivered by Design Dundee, a partnership between the V&A, Dundee City Council, the universities of Dundee and Abertay, and Scottish Enterprise.

The consortium believes the futuristic structure will have the same impact on Dundee as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum had on Bilbao. Mike Galloway, Dundee City Council’s director of city development, said he hoped the public will be inspired by what they see.

“For the first time people will be taken on a journey inside the building,” Mr Galloway said. “Previously we have had visualisations of what the building will look like externally but the public haven’t had the chance yet to actually get a feel for what the galleries and the main spaces within the building will be like.

“It is actually a much bigger building than people might think. The spaces within it are really quite powerful and impressive. And I think they are going to be most struck by the sense of light within the building. The walls externally appear to be quite solid but it’s been very cleverly designed to bring shafts of light into all of the main spaces. And I think that’s something people will find surprising.”

A spokeswoman for the project said: “The live visualisation uses the wider application of gaming technology to create an incredibly detailed 3D visualisation of V&A at Dundee and the surrounding waterfront. It has been created to reflect improvements to building design, including the beautiful slot windows which provide a constant reference to the outstanding location on the River Tay, the two bridges, RRS Discovery and the hills of Fife; and the ceiling slots which allow visitors to see blue sky by day and the stars by night.”

The video is on show within the foyer of the Dundee Science Centre. The V&A project are working on an interactive version of the fly through which is expected to go online within a fortnight.