Dundee - City of Design

Nobody told the seagulls to show some respect for Dundee as a 2015 UNESCO City of Design. Their mark is omnipresent on the cobbled streets and old granite buildings of this sea-faring city that’s hoping to attract attention with ambitious development plans (including a northern branch of the Victoria & Albert Museum that’s slated to open in 2017). Rudy got the inside scoop on the city’s rebranding from the head of the city-supported Creative Dundee. We admired the grand public buildings, visited the impressive contemporary arts center, and paid homage to the city’s past glory as the jute capital of the world. In the mid-1800s, a million bales of jute a year came to Dundee from India to be processed into everything from rope for whaling ships to canvas for American pioneers’ wagon trains to burlap bags for South American coffee beans and sugar to backing for carpets and linoleum. In a few decades though someone figured out it was far cheaper to teach the Indians to manufacture those products themselves rather than transport the raw materials halfway around the world. Yet another great Scottish industry vanished, leaving derelict brick warehouses, empty wharves, and unemployed workers in its wake. Former industrial detritus now houses design firms, artists and digital start-ups (think made-in-Dundee Minecraft)....and no wild dundee marmalades were sighted!