ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
The outstanding design by Japanese architects Kengo Kuma & Associates, working in partnership with Scottish practice Cre8architecture, was selected by a jury as the choice for V&A at Dundee following an international competition.
The chosen design is for a striking building that will come to represent Dundee and has the potential to be one of Europe’s most iconic buildings.
Its inspirational forms make reference to V&A at Dundee’s celebrated neighbour, the pioneering ship the RRS Discovery, designed and constructed in the city.
Citing light and nature as his inspiration, Kengo Kuma’s goal is to recover the design of traditional buildings and to reinterpret this for the 21st century, using natural materials to create airy, open spaces filled with sunlight.
Kengo Kuma and Associates
Kengo Kuma & Associates was founded in Japan in 1990, with European offices based in Paris. The practice is involved in a wide range of design disciplines from furniture and product design to architecture and urban scale planning.
The practice has completed several noteworthy museum commissions including the large Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, the Museum of Ando Hiroshige in Togichi, and the Suntory Museum in Tokyo, its wooden floors made from recycled whisky barrels. With each of these projects Kengo Kuma has applied his belief that the 21st century museum can be the centre of life in the city.
Among his other architectural accomplishments are the LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) Group's Japan headquarters, the flagship store for Tiffany & Co in the heart of Tokyo, and the urban scale complexes of Sanlitun SOHO and Saniltun Village South in downtown Beijing.
Kengo Kuma is a Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Tokyo and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (2011). He has won many awards, including the prestigious Architectural Institute of Japan Award (1997).
