800,000 visit V&A museum in its first year

Scotland’s newest showpiece museum welcomed more than 800,000 visitors in its first year.

Figures reveal that the V&A Dundee – which turns one today – attracted 300,000 more people than pre-opening estimates.

In the last 12 months, the riverside facility was also a hit with famous visitors and attracted numerous accolades and awards.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were there for the official opening and it made the front cover of TIME Magazine as one of the world’s Greatest Places of 2019.

It also hosted filming of BBC Antiques Roadshow and even featured in an Irn-Bru Snowman advert.

V&A Dundee’s opening marked over a decade of planning and preparation, including the design of Kengo Kuma’s remarkable new building, and major conservation projects including Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Oak Room.

Philip Long, the museum’s director, said: “As well as welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors and putting on world-class exhibitions championing Scottish and international design, the museum has really become part of the city, and for that I’d like to thank everyone for their support.”

However it has not been without its critics.

Nicola Walls, director of arts and culture at Page Park architects, said: “The inside of the V&A Dundee disappointed me. In many museums you enter, such as the Kelvingrove, you immediately see the exhibits, which create a sense of invitation to see and learn more. It has failed in my mind in its principle areas. It is a tourism hub, a cafeteria and a shop.”

And Richard Murphy, who designed the Dundee Contemporary Arts gallery in 1999, said: “It is a very distinctive building. In that sense it has ticked a very big box. The problem is that if you talk to architects they say it should be more than a symbol. The actual museum is quite boring.”