SCOTLAND’S first design museum hit the half million visitor mark yesterday – almost six months earlier than expected.
The 500,000th person to walk through the doors of V&A was officially recorded at 10.35am.
Designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the museum opened on September 15 last year and has vastly exceeded original visitor estimates which forecast it would take 12 months to reach half a million visitors.
Surveys commissioned by V&A Dundee have found that visitors are being attracted from beyond the immediate Tayside region, with 36% from elsewhere in Scotland, 17% from the rest of the UK and 9% from overseas.
Responses also show the opening of V&A Dundee has given its home city new confidence, with 84% of attendees saying the launch festival positively impacted their perception of the city.
Director of V&A Dundee Philip Long said it had been an “extraordinary” opening period with support from visitors surpassing all expectations.
“V&A Dundee is flourishing as a hub of creativity and learning and it’s wonderful to see so many people enjoying it, with many returning time and time again,” he said.
The next major exhibition, Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, opens on April 20 and is the first exhibition to consider fully the complexity of videogames, positioning them as one of the most important design fields of the times.
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