ONLY the best and the very few have made it to the elite circle of international architects who banner headlines the world over. These names have become part of international art-speak for the culturati who can, for instance, tell the difference between a biomorphic desert structure by Iraq’s Zaha Hadid, an aerodynamic hanging bridge by Spain’s Santiago Calatrava, or a postmodern manse by Michael Graves of the US.

But clocking a meteoric rise to the top of the architectural firmament in barely three decades is the firm of Switzerland’s Herzog & de Meuron which is set to construct a landmark museum devoted to architecture and design in West Kowloon in Hong Kong.

The monumental 60,000-square-meter project is named M+ which is envisioned to be Hong Kong’s—and Asia’s—new museum for visual culture, encompassing 20th- and 21st-century art, design, architecture and moving images. M+ will document the past, inform the present and contribute to the future of visual culture within an interconnected global landscape, according to museum sources. The organization will take a multidisciplinary approach that both challenges and respects existing boundaries, while creating a rendezvous for a multiverse of perspectives, narratives and audiences. As mandates and monuments go, M+ is the only one of its kind in Asia.

And who else was deemed worthy to design and build it except for the world’s penultimate architectural stylists, nay, rebels, who previously attained global prominence via their Bird’s Nest, the nickname given to Beijing’s National Stadium which was the pride of that unforgettable Olympic Games in 2008. With street cred and critical success, the firm bested their peers—which included Renzo Piano and Toyo Ito—in the selection process for M+. Winning the contract through a competitive bid, the building design was awarded to the practice headed by five senior partners Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach who manage Herzog & de Meuron from its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, reaching over to five satellite offices in the world’s busiest cities. Herzog & de Meuron Basel has received numerous plums including the Pritzker Architecture Prize (USA) in 2001, and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (UK) and the Praemium Imperiale (Japan), both in 2007.

Meanwhile, providing additional support are Hong Kong-based firms TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners. Unlike most matters of urban consequence, M+ has taken 10 years in the making as the brainchild of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) which oversees the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), the largest arts-and-culture project to date in Hong Kong. WKCDA has envisioned the creation of M+ as a public space that shall anchor the vibrant cultural quarter called WKCD in the city. In addition, the WKCDA foresees that M+ will be a vital platform for the Asian arts scene to interact and collaborate, and a major facility to host and produce world-class exhibitions, performances and arts-and-culture events.

The WKCDA has provided 23 hectares of open space including lush greenery and a promenade fronting Victoria Harbor that shall connect the museum to the world and to the neighborhood. This means that M+ will stand at the boundary between the urban sector and a planned park in the overall conceptual plan of the WKCD which was prepared by Foster & Partners in 2011.

As part of Hong Kong’s grand scheme to be the center of all things good in Asia, M+ has already embarked on a number of public outings and exhibitions, and has begun to assemble its permanent collection in the run-up to the planned 2017 completion date.  Recently, the WKCDA unveiled a landmark exhibition showcasing the first acquisitions and donations to the M+ architecture collection, alongside the winning design by Herzog & de Meuron with TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners HK.

Building M+: The Museum and Architecture Collection runs until February 9 with free admission at ArtisTree on the ground floor of Cornwall House, TaiKoo Place, Island East, Hong Kong.  The exhibit is curated by Aric Chen with Shirley Surya as assistant curator. The exhibition design is by SKEW Collaborative, with graphics by Project Projects.

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