Dundee V&A architect to deliver first Scottish talk

KENGO Kuma, the award- winning Japanese architect chosen to design the iconic outpost of the world-famous V&A Museum on Dundee's waterfront, is to deliver his first ever public lecture in Scotland in May, it was announced yesterday.

Last November Mr Kuma's striking design - a lattice-like structure reminiscent of a ship's bow - emerged as the unanimous winner of the international competition to shape the 45 million landmark building, which is to be constructed on a promontory in the River Tay, at the heart of the city's waterfront regeneration.

The Scottish Government has already pledged almost 5m in funding to kick-start the ambitious project, enabling the project partnership, Design Dundee Ltd, to complete the detailed design and planning approval processes in preparation for construction to begin in 2012.

Mr Kuma, a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at Tokyo University, is to visit Dundee for the first time since his company secured the design contract to present his public lecture - The Answer is Architecture - at Dundee University's Dalhousie Building on 21 May.