A tale of two cities

Not so long ago, the Dundee waterfront was presided over by a great triumphal arch, built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s visit in 1844. It was an imposing piece of decorative architecture, 84 feet high, and it dominates most views of the city painted over the ensuing century. It became a cherished symbol of Dundee but in 1964 they knocked it down and used the rubble as infill for a thuddingly insensitive road system that would effectively destroy the southern face of the city.

Mary Shelley stayed in Dundee in her youth and later wrote of the ‘blank and dreary’ northern shores of the Tay. It’s a description still familiar to many, although the region’s nadir arrived long after Shelley. The destruction of the arch heralded decades of dismal urban planning. The Dundee-born poet Don Paterson has spoken of watching the council for half a century confuse ‘urban regeneration with a post-apocalypse’.

For too long, Dundee was a place cut off from its own river, the connection between town and water severed by intrusive road development and ugly building. The aim of an ongoing £1 billion investment in the area has been to reverse the devastation of such neglectful planning, regenerate the docklands and revitalise what was once the commercial heart of the city.

At Craig Harbour, beside the train station, stands the latest, and most significant, element of this ambitious project. The first V&A museum outside London will open its doors here on 15 September, setting sail with a huge exhibition (seen in London earlier this year) dedicated to the design and culture of ocean liners. After almost a decade of planning and construction, Dundonians will, at last, be able to see what the £80 million lavished here has bought them.