Graham
01-02-2014, 10:29 PM
V&A to start work on Dundee-based museum following lottery award
Heritage Lottery Fund to provide up to £9.2m towards costs of first dedicated site for V&A outside LondonSeverin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 2 January 2014 21.00 GMThttp://www.thecourier.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.152719.1384275380!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620/image.jpgBuilding work on one of the UK's largest new museums, an outpost for the V&A on the banks of the Tay in Dundee, is expected to finally start this year after a multi-million pound lottery award.
The board of the Heritage Lottery Fund is due to award up to £9.2m towards the costs of constructing the dramatic riverside venue, an angular, sloping building designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, when they meet later this month.
Further lottery funding awards are also likely to be made towards the full £45m cost of the first dedicated site for the V&A outside London. The building, which will feature a boat-like prow jutting out over the Tay, its exterior built from open layers of stone compound blocks and glass, will be the centrepiece for a £1bn redevelopment of the city's waterfront area.
But its director, Philip Long, has disclosed that its opening date has again slipped. He said the expected opening for the V&A at Dundee had now been put back to late 2016 or in 2017, three years later than the 2014 opening date touted when the project was first unveiled in 2010.
The V&A at Dundee, Scotland's first international design museum, will showcase V&A touring exhibitions, while creating a local collection using products such as Paisley pattern fabrics, Scottish architects such as Robert Adam or Charles Rennie Mackintosh, or contemporary computer games from Scotland such as Grand Theft Auto.
With the costs of the project intended to be spilt three ways, the lottery grants are expected to unlock more of the £15m in private funding the project needs. Scottish ministers have already confirmed their £15m share of the costs.
The last announcement of private funding was a year ago, when £4m came from a number of charitable trusts, leaving an £11m gap in donations to fill.
Long said that other donors had since come forward. Their identities have not yet been disclosed, but he said an HLF award would boost the project's appeal to other benefactors.
"Both HLF and Arts Lottery are expected to make decisions on our capital applications in the new year," he said. "Lottery approval will further demonstrate very significant confidence in the project and we are sure this will encourage others to become involved."
Shortly before Christmas the project invited formal tenders for the main building contract, with a hope that construction would start in the summer of 2014. Long was cautious, however, about offering a specific target date for an official opening.
"The tender issue keeps the project on schedule for an anticipated site start in the summer of next year," he said. "While it would be unwise at this stage to state defined opening dates, the projected date for the main fabric of the building to be in place is the end of 2015. Its completion, interior fit-out and exhibition installation will follow throughout 2016, leading to the first full year of programming in 2017."
Based partly on the waterfront regeneration scheme and the V&A project, Dundee was shortlisted in 2013 to become the UK's city of culture for 2017 but, along with Leicester and Swansea, lost out to Hull. Dundee had hoped to stage the Turner art prize and Man Booker literary prize ceremonies as part of its city of culture programme.
The scale and ambition of the original V&A design has been pared back on engineering and cost grounds. Marine engineers vetoed the first Kumo design to have it floated out over the river, resting on expensive piling. Its frontage has shrunk too, although the revised designs have meant its internal floorspace has been increased by more than 1,000 square metres, to 8,190 sq m.
Heritage Lottery Fund to provide up to £9.2m towards costs of first dedicated site for V&A outside LondonSeverin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 2 January 2014 21.00 GMThttp://www.thecourier.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.152719.1384275380!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620/image.jpgBuilding work on one of the UK's largest new museums, an outpost for the V&A on the banks of the Tay in Dundee, is expected to finally start this year after a multi-million pound lottery award.
The board of the Heritage Lottery Fund is due to award up to £9.2m towards the costs of constructing the dramatic riverside venue, an angular, sloping building designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, when they meet later this month.
Further lottery funding awards are also likely to be made towards the full £45m cost of the first dedicated site for the V&A outside London. The building, which will feature a boat-like prow jutting out over the Tay, its exterior built from open layers of stone compound blocks and glass, will be the centrepiece for a £1bn redevelopment of the city's waterfront area.
But its director, Philip Long, has disclosed that its opening date has again slipped. He said the expected opening for the V&A at Dundee had now been put back to late 2016 or in 2017, three years later than the 2014 opening date touted when the project was first unveiled in 2010.
The V&A at Dundee, Scotland's first international design museum, will showcase V&A touring exhibitions, while creating a local collection using products such as Paisley pattern fabrics, Scottish architects such as Robert Adam or Charles Rennie Mackintosh, or contemporary computer games from Scotland such as Grand Theft Auto.
With the costs of the project intended to be spilt three ways, the lottery grants are expected to unlock more of the £15m in private funding the project needs. Scottish ministers have already confirmed their £15m share of the costs.
The last announcement of private funding was a year ago, when £4m came from a number of charitable trusts, leaving an £11m gap in donations to fill.
Long said that other donors had since come forward. Their identities have not yet been disclosed, but he said an HLF award would boost the project's appeal to other benefactors.
"Both HLF and Arts Lottery are expected to make decisions on our capital applications in the new year," he said. "Lottery approval will further demonstrate very significant confidence in the project and we are sure this will encourage others to become involved."
Shortly before Christmas the project invited formal tenders for the main building contract, with a hope that construction would start in the summer of 2014. Long was cautious, however, about offering a specific target date for an official opening.
"The tender issue keeps the project on schedule for an anticipated site start in the summer of next year," he said. "While it would be unwise at this stage to state defined opening dates, the projected date for the main fabric of the building to be in place is the end of 2015. Its completion, interior fit-out and exhibition installation will follow throughout 2016, leading to the first full year of programming in 2017."
Based partly on the waterfront regeneration scheme and the V&A project, Dundee was shortlisted in 2013 to become the UK's city of culture for 2017 but, along with Leicester and Swansea, lost out to Hull. Dundee had hoped to stage the Turner art prize and Man Booker literary prize ceremonies as part of its city of culture programme.
The scale and ambition of the original V&A design has been pared back on engineering and cost grounds. Marine engineers vetoed the first Kumo design to have it floated out over the river, resting on expensive piling. Its frontage has shrunk too, although the revised designs have meant its internal floorspace has been increased by more than 1,000 square metres, to 8,190 sq m.