V&A Dundee has narrowly missed out on the title of the nation’s museum of the year.
The Kengo Kuma-designed centrepiece of Dundee’s Waterfront transformation was pipped to the prestigious accolade and £100,000 prize at a ceremony in London’s Science Museum on Wednesday night by St Fagan’s National Museum of History in Wales.
As a finalist in the competition, the Dundee attraction will receive £10,000.
The museum, which opened to the public last September, was the newest venue on the 2019 shortlist when it was revealed in April.
It lined up against HMS Caroline in Belfast, Nottingham Contemporary, Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and eventual winner St Fagan’s, located near Cardiff.
The winner of #MuseumOfTheYear 2019 is @StFagans_Museum
It’s won because our judges were impressed by how it lives, breathes and embodies the culture and identity of Wales and by the way it's forged a new and meaningful model of community collaboration
Llongyfarchiadau! pic.twitter.com/LxNv7QsqSs
— Art Fund (@artfund) July 3, 2019
Judges had praised the shortlisted museums for offering “outstanding and different approaches to the vital task of engaging with the widest public in new and adventurous ways.”
