V&A Dundee

The famed Victoria & Albert design museum has opened its first ever location outside of London in an unexpected place: Dundee, a quiet city on the coast of Scotland. It’s the cornerstone of a more than $1 billion plan to revitalize the city, a onetime industrial powerhouse now struggling with high unemployment. Renowned architect Kengo Kuma designed the modern building, which sits on the Dundee waterfront, to mimic Scotland’s iconic cliffs. The free museum—the first in Scotland for design—opened in September 2018 and tells the story of the country’s design history, with highlights including Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Oak Room. It welcomed its 500,000th visitor in March. —Samantha Cooney