M+ Museum Designed by Herzog & de Meuron Opens in Hong Kong

Asia's first global museum of contemporary visual culture, M+, has opened its doors to the public in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District. Designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, in partnership with TFP Farrells and ARUP, the 65,000-square-metre M+ building is among Hong Kong's most iconic landmarks, both monumental in its architectural form and radically open in its position in the urban landscape. 

The building consists of a striking terracotta tile-clad tower, featuring a dynamic LED media system on the south facade for the display of M+ content, defining the museum's place within the urban landscape and contributing to the city's vibrant night-time environment. The horizontal building hovering above an "industrial" landscape houses the more conventional display spaces. 

As in a city, the arrangement of all the galleries is based on an orthogonal grid. A central plaza provides direct access to the entire exhibition area. A tall "Focus Gallery," with two lateral bands of daylight just below the ceiling, rises out of the horizontal exhibition building and plugs into the lower part of the vertical staff and education building. 

The galleries themselves may be illuminated from above or from the sides; they may be introverted or extroverted. A variety of precise openings in the facade frame views of the Artist Square, the Art Park and the skyline of Hong Kong Island across the harbour. 

Built to the height specified in the master plan, this thin and long vertical structure provides research facilities and a curatorial centre where naturally filtered daylight and expansive city views make researching, learning and working a special experience. A members' lounge and public restaurants with panoramic views are housed on its top floors. Integrated into the sun-shading horizontal louvres of the facade facing the harbour, an LED lighting system activates the building as a coarse-grained, oversized display screen for selected or specially commissioned works of art and establishes M+ as part of the Victoria Harbour skyline. 

The resulting structure is not simply anchored in its surroundings; it is also formed by them. The precise and urban, almost archaic shape reiterates the iconic character of Kowloon's skyline on one hand, yet on the other hand, this convention is subverted by the transmitted message of the art, visible from afar, which will consequently make M+ a site of constant renewal, rather than being locked into a predefined form.M+ is a public forum, a built platform for the exchange, encounter and activity of people and art. 

It is a universal place with an inner organization whose openness and transparency make it possible to link the complexities of the content and the space in many different ways. Through its specificity, it becomes a distinctive, singular and unmistakable piece of Hong Kong.

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Cover photo ©Kevin Mak - Courtesy of M+, Hong Kong