Herzog de Meuron unlocks potential of plot on reclaimed land
Construction is complete on M+, Hong Kong’s new museum of visual culture, with work now focusing on internal fittings and fixtures in preparation for the museum’s opening later this year. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron with TFP Farrells as local partner architect and Arup as engineering consultant, M+ is set to become one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world.
M+ is located on land reclaimed from the sea, intersected by an underground railway tunnel housing the Airport Express. Excavation around the existing tunnels revealed this distinctive feature as a ‘found space’, offering potential for large-scale installations. Pierre de Meuron explained: “We have made the underground tunnel of the Airport Express the raison d’être of a rough, large-scale exhibition universe that literally anchors the entire building in the ground. The tunnel has been uncovered, creating a radical space for art and design, installation and performance; it is a space of unprecedented potential and a challenge to artist and curator alike.”
Accessible through multiple entry points, the M+ podium above contains 17,000 sq m of exhibition space, three cinemas, a lecture theatre, a learning hub, a museum shop, performance spaces, cafés, a mediatheque and a public roof terrace with views to Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline. Reaching up from the podium is the vertical museum tower which houses the library, archive, study centre, member’s facilities, museum offices and restaurants, and features a LED façade for the display of artists’ moving image works. Jacques Herzog stated: “M+ certainly has the potential to become the major visual culture museum in Asia. It best expresses where we should go as a world culture, where diversity, equality and access to art of all kinds are expressed from the very beginning.”
Lucy Nordberg
TenderStream Head of Research
This tender was first published by TenderStream on 19.09.2012 here
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