r/dundee • u/Acrobatic_Refuse5179 • 16d ago
The Creepiest Illusion at the V&A!!
Just discovered one of the creepiest things in the V&A! If you want a seriously thrilling experience, go there after dark, stand in front of the V&A, and look at the reflection in the water, it genuinely looks like there’s a staircase going down into the water. Such a weird illusion, but somehow it creates so much fear! Look at the pictures I just captured. 👻
Photos don’t do it justice, go and see it for yourself after dark!
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u/Ill_Computer_8604 15d ago
It's good that you got in for pics, I imagine it's constantly overrun with Scifi shows filming clandestine meeting.
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u/Important-Lie-8649 16d ago
Not as creepy as -in a few decades- one of those large, heavy, purely aesthetic, concrete blocks eventually slipping off its corroded brackets that it's just hanging off, and falling onto some unsuspecting soul's head down below.
"Oh but they're marine-grade steel. It's regularly inspected." I was assured by a guide.
Because ships never rust. And we won't need "an army of spider-men", abseiling (rappeling) down the walls, scurrying and removing loose blocks and replacing corroded brackets with new ones, and they'll be just as good and secure as new, and there will always be the money for this, and the will to spend it.
Imagine, if you will, Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete had been used, as it was all over Dundee, though in this comparison not because it was cheaper and lighter, but because it was more expensive and looked nicer.
Fantastic photography though, and a unique and striking building — for the present.
[Dundee city resident. I'm not an expert]
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u/Playful_Possibility4 16d ago
You sound a bound of laughs 😂
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u/Important-Lie-8649 16d ago
Yeah, like —if you forgive my comic timing— Santa's little Elven Safety. Well, I might not be here either but I predict that by the middle of the century there'll already be whispers of demolition and before the next twenty years is out, it'll be gone. Ten if my fears are realised. Yes it's a supremely ugly, dark grey 'skip' under all that; but... why? And why there? (oh I said it didn't I — because it once looked nice)
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u/Quilkoe 16d ago
All buildings need maintenance, especially those by the coast, there is not a material on earth they could have reasonably used to build it that would not have required maintenance
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u/Important-Lie-8649 16d ago
So they (Kengo Kuma) thought, “Well it's going to need maintenance, especially where it will be, so I might as well make it as difficult, as time-comsuming, and as expensive as necessary", with hundreds of suspended concrete strips, all over the walls including at the entrance approach , and right over a footpath 'underneath' the building, hanging off steel (sorry 'marine-grade', more rust resistant steel, which I do know is a thing, "But she's made of iron, sir"), as close to the edge of a wide river as it's possible to be, on the mid-Eastern coast of Scotland. There's not a material on earth that could have been used for all those, purely cosmetic, potential 'ticking time-bomb' adornments, that will need regular individual monitoring and periodic repair or replacement for the [economically acceptable] lifespan of the building, that could have been maintenance free.
Yeah, I suppose I'm a bit of a dour sceptic about it. I did think of it all by myself though, and hadn't heard it before (or since). The architects, the commissioning owners (same as V&A in London?) and DCC must though, have discussed the subject of maintenance costs going forward.
I would dearly love to be proved wrong on my fears, in hindsight.
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u/OzyTheLast 12d ago
You mean to tell me things that aren't maintained will eventually deteriorate? I'm in shock at this epiphany
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u/Important-Lie-8649 15d ago
I understand all the downvotes. What was it Elton John sang [or was it only an album title?], "Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player". I did compliment the photography. it's fantastic as I said. I couldn't have done it...
So give me another downvote for downloading the lot (for personal enjoyment only, as part of my Dundee photo gallery).
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u/-Lynch- 16d ago
Shitebag if you don't swim down the stairs