ANYONE who has spent the last year wandering around the National Museum wondering what the whirrs and thunks dimly heard behind temporary walls signified about the new galleries under construction will be delighted to see that the hoardings have finally been taken down. The work of the late Gareth Hoskins, whose architectural firm was responsible for the museum’s first phase of regeneration in 2011, the ten new galleries are as dazzling as the first, packing in thousands of objects, many of which have not been seen in a generation for no other reason than that there simply hasn’t been the space.

And space is important, bearing in mind that the National Museum’s remit is staggeringly wide. In a museum complex of two adjoining buildings in the centre of Edinburgh, the Museum covers numerous bases. To put it in context, it’s effectively like trying to cram in the collection specialisms covered in London by the Science Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum all under one roof. The key problem facing any curator here is the danger of appearing to be tokenistic – how not to, when something like the Jean Muir collection numbers 18,000 objects, of which just a few can be on display – but the museum largely avoids this in well-thought out displays that work thematically and across disciplines.

The new galleries cover Science and Technology, Industry, the Decorative Arts and Design. Everything has been immaculately conserved, placed in airtight vitrines and given a spangly touchscreen display panel to add depth or broaden the context. Crucially, too, the return of the printed label, which as anyone who has fumed at the occasional lack of visible labelling in the last revamp might tell you (the obfuscating Wall of Wonders in the Main Hall a case in point), is a triumph for anyone who wants to learn from their museum visit rather than simply to be wowed by the visual wonder of it all.

But what visual wonder there is. The range is so breathtakingly vast that it’s a little difficult to take it all in amongst the jolly jostle of high tourist and school holiday season, just after the galleries have opened. Best to zoom in on a few areas. And if you have kids, count on not getting out of the raucous ground floor multi-screen Explore gallery in less than three hours. Or possibly ever, if you’re thinking about queuing up for the revamped Formula 1 racing simulator.

And there are so many objects here to spark the curious mind. High above it all, a two tonne copper cavity from the particle accelerator at Cern (installed on the top floor balcony and requiring the floor to be reinforced in order to hold it) and an early aircraft, Percy Pilcher’s pioneering Hawk hang glider (1897), the first of a series of five planes swooping down through the atrium from the rafters. There is a wall of bicycles from bone-shakers to racers, the world’s first bionic arm and Dolly the Sheep on a perpetually revolving plinth.

There are some excellent 19th century models of industrial machinery made by former museum staff, superbly restored and working at the touch of a red button. This is 19th century technology in miniature form, a triumph of early, enduring educational interactivity.

The new and existing interactive elements in Explore are mostly entertaining and instructive, although some of the more flashy screen-based interactives are in danger of suggesting you might bypass the exhibits and do all this in the virtual world instead, surely not the intention. But that is one of the challenges for museums in this technologically advancing age.

There is more judicious use of screen-based technology elsewhere, not least in the Fashion and Design galleries, in which archive footage or artist interviews are used to give something of the story behind the fascinating objects on display, from a short documentary on textile designer Bernat Klein at work in his studio to similarly fascinating insights around the room. On the first floor balcony above, a transfixing video of a glassblower at work is a fine example of film which adds depth to the displays, although a vast suspended fashion "mood" film in the central atrium is a pointless and distracting triumph of style over substance.

For the clothes on display below in the Museum’s first Fashion gallery are their own theatre, from a wonderful Holly Fulton dress from her Spring Summer 2015 collection to a fragile Hussain Chalyan Airmail Dress, designed to look as if it has been constructed out of an unfolded airmail letter. Along the walls, in a good-looking march through fashion and dress history, a fabulous thick-knit, intricately patterned Fair Isle jumper displayed alongside a pattern book from the island (circa 1927-3) to a luminous "cap" of acetate bristles by Maiko Takeda, whose wonderful constructions found their spiritual home on the head of Bjork on her Biophilia tour.

And so on to the first floor and the applied arts – ceramics, glass, jewellery. A wall of studio ceramics moves from Bernard Leach (and an enlightening archive film of him throwing a pot) to Lucie Rie, then elsewhere to Picasso and Andre Breton. It is all immaculately presented, thematically clustered and thought-provoking.

Upstairs, the decorative arts and the fine-tuning of form and function battle between hand-crafting and machine-age production in a gallery that begins with the Great Exhibition of 1851 and ends with the Festival of Britain a century later. Each vitrine is a story in itself, from a cabinet full of Christopher Dresser tea pots and an enfilade of noteworthy Phoebe Anna Traquair to the machine-made modernism of Marcel Breuer.

And tucked away at the top of the museum, somewhat crammed in, the NMS trophy cabinet of pre nineteenth century decorative art. A treasure trove of finely-chased silverware, intricate marquetry, stunning tapestry and a vast panelled wall removed from Hamilton Palace, here are opulent tea sets, a stunning 13th century reliquary casket, the products of wealthy secular and religious patronage. If you are looking for a quiet place to do the mental equivalent of lying down in a darkened room after the high octane pzazz of the Explore gallery, this is your spot.

National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh

www.nms.uk