FOR a building with such a emphatic, even brutal, exterior, the V&A Dundee has a surprisingly warm, intimate interior.
Its main gathering space, a impressive bowl which is appears smaller at the base than its roof, has its walls lined with warmly coloured, multi-angled, slats of wood. One wall of slats is sloped like an internal hill. Will children be tempted to climb it? I suspect so. I am told museum staff will be on hand to gentle dissuade them.
In this space, there is the cafe and the shop, and much seating space, including a beautiful window out onto the Tay.
Once up the stairs, however, whose deep steps seem designed to slow you down, the museum expands in size, scale and light.
READ MORE: Scottish fashion amid the items on display at V&A Dundee
One may justifiably ask: where was the £80.1m spent? It is probably here, where the two massive halves of the building - which look a bit like gigantic Vs with an A-shaped tunnel between them - twist, merge and open into the two exhibition spaces. Light floods in from several apertures in the striated exterior: the view west, through the rigging of the HMS Discovery, down the Tay, and to the hills, is spectacular.
The Scottish Design Gallery is a carefully curated mix of 300 objects from the V&A in London's collections: this is the permanent show, and although it will be re-jigged fairly regularly, it will remain largely the same. There is a lot of Glasgow here: notably in the restored Mackintosh Oak Room, which is lustrous and elegant: and in situ for at least another 25 years. This is also Basil Spence's designs for the Hutchesontown flats in the Gorbals, and a Kings Theatre set. It is not a massive display, indeed perhaps modest, but it is beautifully presented.
READ MORE: Philip Long on Scotland's first design museum
The larger exhibition space is, for its debut, presenting Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, which is opulent, extensive, and (perhaps surprisingly) fascinating.
It is just a taste of what the new building can do, both with V&A shows and with its own.
The key will be changing it enough to keep visitors coming back, beyond the quality of the building itself: which gives Dundee something fiercely modern and special on its waterfront.
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