At the heart of Scotland’s first design museum, which opened its doors to the public last weekend, are the Scottish Design Galleries which are the first in the world dedicated to telling the extraordinary story of Scottish design.

Through 300 objects spanning more than 500 years and ranging from architecture to fashion, healthcare to furniture and engineering to videogame design, the Scottish Design Galleries present the breadth and richness of Scottish design, historically and today. The majority of objects on display are drawn from the V&A’s world-class collections of art, design and performance, brought together with loans from other museums, private collections, designers and companies across Scotland and the world.

Located on the upper floor of V&A Dundee’s new three-storey building and occupying 550 square metres, the Scottish Design Galleries invite visitors to explore Scotland’s unique design landscape through ZMMA’s exhibition design. Three chapters each contextualise the collections on display within distinct atmospheres which excite and intrigue in different ways. A shifting palette of materials from lustrous to robust and the changing scale of spaces from intimate to expansive combine with lighting moods to create vivid, engaging and varied experiences within a coherent overall spatial setting.

The first (and largest) section of the galleries is made up of a series of displays that explore how, why and where particular design industries and craft traditions in Scotland have developed, and situating Scotland’s design history in an international context. Clusters of dense, object-rich displays are juxtaposed to seduce and to entrance, each grouping framing the next and encouraging visitors to weave through in an exploratory journey. Rich colours create a gorgeous background for objects such as Christopher Kane’s ‘Lover’s Lace’ dress and part of Robert Adam’s Glass Drawing Room from Northumberland House.

An expansive display wall of enticingly-glowing recesses and cases houses a wide range of objects that together explore form, function, colour, pattern, materials and techniques. Their juxtaposition creates an inspirational design sourcebook of ideas. Elsewhere the journey from design idea to product is explored through physical and digital interaction, giving visitors the opportunity to engage directly with objects, materials and design processes.

The second section of the Scottish Design Galleries explores the ways that design can improve lives. Here, objects relating to design in housing and town planning, healthcare, power generation and engineering are embedded in a long, undulating cast landscape surface culminating in a valley for the interactive, playful construction (or destruction) of bridges. The calm lightness and expanse of this section present the ambitious scale of design for engineering and community, represented through a series of models, including Frank Gehry’s Dundee Maggie’s Centre and the Falkirk Wheel by RMJM Architects.

A highlight of the Scottish Design Galleries is Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s 1908 Oak Room, a long-term loan from the collections of Glasgow City Council. Unseen for 50 years, now restored and reconstructed in the galleries, visitors are able to enter and linger in the warm-hued, dark oak-panelled interior. ZMMA, in collaboration with Arup, have helped restore the original lighting scheme and given a subtle glow to the window openings which would have once looked onto Glasgow’s streets, and placed the historic room at the heart of the Scottish Design Galleries.

The third and final section takes visitors on an inspirational journey through the realm of the imagination, with design for gaming, performance and entertainment. Atmospheric and immersive, with fleeting, projected moving images and rich, dark colours, visitors are invited to meander among objects such as Padmé Amidala’s costume from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (on loan from the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, California), and the videogame Beckett designed by The Secret Experiment, and to become engrossed in visual design for storytelling.

ZMMA’s design has been enhanced by collaborations between ZMMA, graphic designers Why Not Associates and digital designers ISO as well as technical support from Arup Lighting and Eckersley O’Callaghan structural engineers.

Adam Zombory-Moldovan, director of ZMMA, said: “Responding to the remarkable spread, reach and worldwide influence of Scottish design, and the astonishing objects displayed in the galleries, ZMMA’s exhibition design draws visitors to discover connections between its diverse stories in inviting and absorbing atmospheres. Simultaneously beautiful and playful, the spatial unfolding of themes and objects as they thread through the sequence of galleries is designed to inspire.”

Images © David Grandorge