DUNDEE'S new V&A museum is in the running for the title of Museum of the Year.
The design museum, a striking addition to the city's waterfront, has been short listed for the prestigious annual £100,000 prize.
It now faces competition from HMS Caroline in Belfast, the Nottingham Contemporary, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and St Fagan's National Museum of History, near Cardiff.
The judges of the prize, organised annually by the Art Fund, said all of the museums had shown "exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement in the preceding year."
The winner will be announced on 3 July, and will receive £100,000: the other four short listed museums will receive £10,000.
The prize is the world's biggest museum prize, and one of the largest arts and heritage prizes globally.
READ MORE: Virtually brilliant: Our critic's verdict on V&A Dundee's big videogames exhibition
The V&A Dundee is, as well as a significant new museum in its own right, a key part of Dundee's £1bn waterfront regeneration plan.
Philip Long, director of V&A Dundee, said: "It is an honour for everyone who has helped create, launch and run V&A Dundee for the museum to be shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2019.
"This award recognises achievements in 2018, a year when we reached the milestone of engaging over 100,000 people some six months before opening the museum, travelled across Scotland to work with young people, and then launched the museum with a thrilling family festival of design and music.
"Since opening we have already welcomed over 500,000 visitors, double our pre-opening estimates, as well as attracting many people to visit other visitor attractions in Dundee and spend time in this beautiful area of Scotland."
Stephen Deuchar, chair of the judges, said: “Despite, or perhaps because of, the complex environment of our times, the UK’s museums continue to challenge and inspire.
"The five shortlisted museums have each offered outstanding and different approaches to the vital task of engaging with the widest public in new and adventurous ways.
"We congratulate all those who are on the shortlist and encourage everyone to go and visit them."
READ MORE: Six months of success for the new V&A Dundee
Alongside Mr Deuchar, the judges are artist David Batchelor, the broadcaster and journalist Brenda Emmanus, Bridget McConnell, the chief executive of Glasgow Life, and Bill Sherman, the director of the Warburg Institute.
The judges will together visit each of the finalists.
The V&A Dundee, which was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and cost £80m to build, has had more than 500,000 visitors since it opened.
It has a permanent Scottish design gallery, as well as a large exhibition space for visiting exhibitions: thus far this space has been host to an exhibition on the designs of ocean liners, and is currently showing the Design/Play/Disrupt show about video games.
The V&A opened last September, and so far its visitor figure tally is ahead of schedule.
Last year, the Glasgow Women's Library was short listed for the annual prize.
The Art Fund said that the V&A Dundee is "both a striking intervention and a feat of engineering."
It added: "The museum showcases international design alongside the outstanding achievements of Scotland in the museum’s permanent Scottish Design Galleries and a programme of major exhibitions.
"Born from a unique partnership between the V&A, local government, universities, enterprise and communities, the new museum has helped regenerate the area, with 100,000 people interacting with the museum’s pre-opening programme and over 500,000 people visiting since it launched."
The HMS Caroline in Belfast is the last remaining British light cruiser ship from the First World War and the Royal Navy’s sole survivor from the Battle of Jutland, the largest sea battle of the First World War.
A £20 million project to rescue, conserve and restore HMS Caroline was completed in 2018.
Nottingham Contemporary opened in 2009, and the Art Fund said that "last year contained several watershed moments for the gallery, in which three critically acclaimed exhibitions shined a light on the work of women artists, and on overlooked and marginalised cultural practices."
READ MORE: V&A Dundee - and the art of video gaming
The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford had "series of innovative programmes in 2018", and attracted 502,000 visitors, a record for the museum, which is known for its significant collections of anthropology and archaeology.
St Fagans National Museum of History last year completed a £30 million redevelopment to become Wales’ National Museum of History.
Of the visitors to the V&A Dundee, surveys it has commissioned have found that visitors are being attracted from beyond the Tayside region, with 36% from elsewhere in Scotland, 17% from the rest of the UK and 9% from overseas.
It aims to attract, after an opening year where it aimed to attract 500,000 visitors - it reached that total six months early - around 350,000 visitors a year.
This would put it on a par with the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, or the People's Palace in Glasgow, according to figures from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.
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