MORE than 10 years in the planning, V&A Dundee will open on the city’s waterfront in just four weeks, bringing to the banks of the Tay Scotland’s first design museum and the only V&A museum in the world outside London.

Around 20,000 people from the city and across Scotland are expected to attend the 3D Festival, a two-day celebration kicking off on Friday, September 14 with a free concert in the nearby Slessor Gardens featuring Primal Scream, singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi and local star Be Charlotte.

The festival continues with a free, unticketed concert and family-friendly events in the gardens the following day when the impressive geometric building, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, will unlock its doors to the public.

Though “exceptionally high interest” means that tickets to see opening exhibition Ocean Liners: Speed and Style during the opening weekend have been snapped up, there’s availability from September 17 for the show, which examines the design and cultural impact of ocean liners from Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 1859 steamship, the Great Eastern to the launch of the QE2 in 1969. Running until spring 2019, Ocean Liners is the first of what the team behind V&A Dundee say will be a programme of exhibitions showcasing the best in design from across the world.

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“I’m really looking forward to welcoming people to the museum,” says Philip Long V&A Dundee director. “The team behind it has worked passionately on it for many years. But of course it doesn’t become a museum until people are in it, taking part, being inspired, getting involved, planning to come back again and again. That’s what we are all looking forward to most.”

As well as the touring programme, the museum will feature permanent, free-entry galleries telling the story of Scotland’s design heritage with around 300 exhibits including ceramics, architecture, fashion, furniture, gaming, textiles and healthcare.

“Scotland has a remarkable history of design creativity that I believe we don’t know enough about,” says Long. “Learning more about it will help inspire future creativity – that aspiration has been behind how we have devised and selected the content of the Scottish design galleries.

“Design has a crucial role in shaping and making better the world we live in and is a fantastic way of applying our creativity. We want the Scottish design galleries to help people understand the processes that lie behind design, how designers from Scotland have had an impact on the world, how design shapes our society and how it expresses our imagination.”

The first confirmed object in the Scottish design galleries was Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Oak Room, a room which last functioned as a tearoom in Glasgow’s Ingram Street in the early 1950s. Salvaged in advance of a hotel development in the 1970s, it was restored and reassembled for the first time at V&A Dundee in a partnership with Glasgow Museums and Dundee City Council. In the 150th anniversary of the architect’s birth, it will be a sure draw to people from across Scotland, the UK and beyond, especially after his library was tragically lost in the second fire at the Glasgow School of Art.

“True to the spirit of Mackintosh’s ethos, it is a complete work of art and design, but I especially love it because of its connection with Japanese design, which Mackintosh was influenced by,” says Long. “Now it is housed in an outstanding building by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who himself is a great admirer of Mackintosh’s work.”

The museum is part of a £1 billion transformation of the Dundee waterfront, an area estimated to create an economic impact of £11.6 million per year. Long says he hopes the benefits of the museum, which will also feature a programme of community, family and learning activities, will radiate through the city and beyond.

“We want V&A Dundee to be for everybody,” he says. “It’s a museum that takes very seriously its role in Dundee and the wider community; and at its heart is its purpose to encourage interest and active engagement in design in Scotland, across the UK and far further afield. It is after all the first V&A museum in the world outside of London, and as part of the V&A family, we are looking forward to adding to the institution’s ability to make a global contribution.”

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, V&A Dundee, Riverside Esplanade, 10am to 5pm daily, £9, £7 concs, £5 children ages 5 to 12. Tel: 01382 411 611. Tickets: bit.ly/OceanLiners

www.vam.ac.uk/dundee