17 September 2012
WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT AUTHORITY ANNOUNCES ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION FOR M+
Invitation for Expression of Interest Open for Flagship Museum for Visual Culture
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority ("WKCDA") announced today details of the design competition for M+, Hong Kong's future museum for visual culture and launched an open invitation to architectural practices in Hong Kong and worldwide to submit Expression of Interest to participate.
M+, scheduled for completion in 2017, is an ambitious project. The scale of the museum building alone, at around 60,000 square metres, will be on par with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Situated on the waterfront of the Victoria Harbour at the edge of a 14-hectare park, it will be one of 17 core arts and cultural venues in the West Kowloon Cultural District ("WKCD"). M+ will be the flagship hub for visual culture from the 20th and 21st century, alongside major performance spaces, creating interdisciplinary exchange between the visual arts and the performing arts in the city.
The physical design of M+ will be shaped around the museum's core values. Principally it will be a museum for the Hong Kong people, firmly rooted in the location and its unique culture, providing a Hong Kong perspective, with a global vision, expanding to other regions of China, Asia and the rest of the world. It will provide space for artists to meet, exhibit and experiment. It will house a world-class permanent visual culture collection of Hong Kong, Chinese, Asian and beyond in all its forms, providing and presenting multiple flexible platforms for multidisciplinary programming, exploring art, design, architecture and the moving image, celebrating the fluidity between the art forms that is characteristic of Asia's cultural ecology. M+ also aims to complement the 'white cubes' and 'black boxes' of the contemporary art museum with 'third spaces' - new formats of interactive space and new interfaces between public space and back-of-house where learning is prioritised.
Facilities will include over 15,000 square metres of exhibition space and 14,000 square metres for conservation and storage, an education centre, an archive library and bookstore, theatres and screen facilities, artist-in-residence studios and outdoor green spaces, subject to the future detailed design.
Submissions will be assessed by a world-class panel of eight jurors, chaired by Rafael Moneo, the Pritzker prize winning Spanish architect. Other members include (in alphabetical order): Eve Blau, Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director of Museum of Modern Arts New York; William Lim, leading Hong Kong architect; Victor Lo, Chairman of Board of Directors, Hong Kong Design Centre; Leslie Lu, leading Hong Kong architect; Lars Nittve, Executive Director, M+; and Uli Sigg, the world's leading collector of Chinese contemporary art. (See Annex 1 for details)
Mr Michael Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA said, "M+ will be the flagship visual arts venue for The West Kowloon Cultural District and for Hong Kong. It will provide essential space for the arts community, a world-class museum for the city, and a leader in the arts globally. The building should be a beacon for our commitment to this. "
Dr Lars Nittve, Executive Director of M+ said, "M+ is a project that strives to regenerate the institution known as a museum - a place where the museum visitors become active, learning participants. It aims to be a museum that is rooted in and shaped by its location - Hong Kong. A museum for its time and place also requires a building for its time and place. We are looking for a design team who share our values and ambitions and will work with us to set M+ apart as an entirely unique museum."
WKCDA welcome submissions from overseas and local design teams. For overseas practices, it must collaborate with a Registered Practice of The Hong Kong Institute of Architects with an office in Hong Kong.
In December up to six design teams will be shortlisted and will be invited to submit concept designs by the WKCDA Board, upon recommendation by the Jury Panel. Entries from the shortlisted teams will be examined by the Jury Panel together with assessment through interviews. The Authority will be looking for a concept design that is original, sustainable, cost effective, and aligns with the ambitions of M+ and the overall planning intention of WKCD. Once appointed in summer 2013, the design team will work closely with the M+ team and WKCDA to develop the detailed design for the building.
Deadline for submission of an Expression of Interest is 15 October 2012. Further details are available in Annex 2 and on WKCDA's website (http://www.wkcda.hk/en/architectural_competition/mplus/index.html)
NOTES TO EDITORS:
The West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong is one of the largest arts and cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to provide a vibrant cultural quarter for the city; a vital platform for the local arts scene to interact, develop and collaborate; and major facilities to host and produce world-class exhibitions, performances and arts and cultural events. The District will include 17 core arts and cultural venues and 30,000 square metres of space for arts education. It will be a low-density development, providing ample open green space and embracing two kilometres of a vibrant harbour-front promenade, 23 hectares of open space and a green avenue, and closely connected with the neighbourhood.
The project will be developed in phases with construction scheduled to commence in 2013. The venues to be commissioned in Phase 1 include M+ (20th and 21st century visual culture museum), the Xiqu Centre (main theatre and Tea House), a Freespace with an outdoor stage, a Lyric Theatre, a Centre for Contemporary Performance, Medium Theatre I, a Music Centre with a Concert and Recital Hall, a Musical Theatre, a Mega Performance Venue and an Exhibition Centre. A host of ancillary facilities including a Resident Company Centre, other creative learning facilities and a number of Arts Pavilions for visual arts exhibitions will also be constructed in this phase. Phase 2 will involve the commissioning of the Great Theatre, a small theatre as part of the Xiqu Centre and the Medium Theatre II.
WKCDA's first cultural event was the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre which was staged at the future site of the Xiqu Centre near Canton Road during the Chinese New Year in 2012 and will return next year in response to popular demand.
M+
M+ will be the new museum for visual culture in Hong Kong, focusing on 20th and 21st- century art, design, architecture, popular culture and the moving image. From day one, M+ is set to develop content from a Hong Kong perspective, the perspective of the "now", and with a global vision, expanding to other regions of China, Asia and the rest of the world.
M+ aspires to build a world-class collection of Hong Kong, Chinese and Asian visual culture. In June 2012 the museum received the first donation to its permanent collection of 1,463 artworks of Chinese contemporary art from Dr Uli Sigg of Switzerland, the world's leading collector in this field , representing the majority of The Sigg Collection, universally recognised as the largest, most comprehensive and most important collection in the world of Chinese contemporary art from the 1970s to the present. The M+ collection will cover all forms of visual culture including design and will represent the first major design and architecture collection in Asia.
During ART HK 12, M+ presented Mobile M+: Yau Ma Tei, the first in a series of major pop-up "nomadic" exhibitions curated by M+. Installed across various locations in the future neighbourhood of M+, it marked the beginning of the museum's venture into programming, to engage the public, before the completion of the building in late 2017.
Annex 1
Members of Jury Panel
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Jurors |
Short Biography |
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Rafael Moneo (Spain) Chairman [Image: Rafael Moneo_s.jpg]
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Rafael Moneo, Académico Numerario of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Spain since 1997, has been awarded numerous distinctions. He is recipient of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1996 and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2003 and the 2012 Premio Principe de Asturias de las Artes.
Rafael Moneo combines his professional activity as an architect with that as lecturer, critic and theoretician. His book Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects first published by ACTAR and MIT Press in 2005 has been translated into many languages. His most recent book Remarks on 21 Works, has been published by Monacelli Press and Gustavo Gili in September 2010.
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Eve Blau (USA) [Image: Eve Blau_s.jpg] |
Eve Blau is Adjunct Professor of the History of Urban Form at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
She has written extensively on modern architecture, urbanism, and modes of representation. Current book projects include Transparency + Modernity: Experimentalist Practices in 20th Century Architecture and Urbanism, and Baku: Oil and Urbanism. Curator of Exhibitions and Publications at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal from 1984-1990, and Adjunct Curator from 1991-2001, she curated numerous exhibitions including the CCA's opening exhibition, Architecture and Its Image. Blau was Editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians from 1997-2000. Her books have received a number of awards, including the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award, the Austrian Cultural Institute Prize, the Spiro Kostof Award, the SAH Exhibition Catalog Award, and the AIA Citation for Excellence in International Architectural Book Publishing. She has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, and the Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna.
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Kathy Halbreich (USA) [Image: Kathy Halbreich_s.jpg] |
Kathy Halbreich is currently the Associate Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She leads the Contemporary Working Group, a curatorial committee dedicated to contemporary art. She is developing the Museum's acquisitions of very recent works through the Fund for the 21st Century, and partnering with the Museum's Director Glenn Lowry on advocacy issues. She oversees research designed to expand curatorial expertise in a more global view of art history.
Ms. Halbreich was inducted into the American Association of Museums Centennial Honor Roll, a recipient of the Award for Curatorial Excellence from Bard College, named a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters, and ranked as the third most influential person in the contemporary art world in the 2008 Art Review Power 100 list.
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William Lim (Hong Kong SAR, China) [Image: William Lim_s.jpg] |
William Lim is a practising architect and is the founder of CL3 Architects Limited. He is an accomplished artist with a passion for Chinese artifacts and contemporary art. He incorporates a variety of artistic elements into his architectural and design pieces, and is actively involved in public art installation projects. His works can be described as "contemporary and modern, mixed with Asian elements."
He has participated in Venice Biennale's International Architectural Exhibition in 2006 and 2010, and the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in 2007, 2009 and 2012. His work has been exhibited in Hong Kong, Chengdu, the United States, and the Netherlands.
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Victor Lo (Hong Kong SAR, China) [Image: Victor Lo_s.jpg] |
Dr Victor Lo is a member of the Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and the Chairman of its Museum Committee. He is also the chairman of the board of directors of Hong Kong Design Centre, the chairman of CreateSmart Initiative Vetting Committee of the HKSAR Government, and chairman of the board of directors of The Hotel ICON Limited, the teaching and research hotel under the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong.
Dr Lo received the Young Industrialist Award of Hong Kong in 1989 and the Industrialist of the Year Award in 2005. He also received the Outstanding Achievement Award from The Professional Validation Council of Hong Kong Industries in 2008.
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Leslie Lu (Hong Kong SAR, China) [Image: Leslie Lu_s.jpg]
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Prof. Leslie Lu is currently the Principal of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) and Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Lee Wai Lee). Prof. Lu is also the Academic Director (Design) of the Vocational Training Council. He served as the Head of the Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong.
Professionally, Prof. Leslie Lu has practised with Cesar Pelli and Associates, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. As Monbusho Scholar in Japan, Prof Lu worked with Shinohara Kazuo on the design of the Centennial Hall in the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Shinohara House in Yokohama.
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Lars Nittve (Hong Kong SAR, China) [Image: Lars Nittve_s.jpg] |
Lars Nittve is currently the Executive Director of M+. He has over 30 years of experience as an academic teacher, art critic, curator and for the last two decades, director of museums of modern and contemporary art.
He began a career in museum curating and directing in 1986 that saw him successfully hold posts at the Moderna Museet, the Rooseum in Malmo, Sweden, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. In 1998 he was named the first Director of Tate Modern, which opened in May 2000 to great acclaim.
From 2001-2010, while serving as Director of the Moderna Museet, Dr Nittve helped double the museum's attendance, triple its donor members, raise approximately US$62 million in donations, host a number of critically acclaimed exhibitions, and more importantly introduce a number of innovative museological ideas and strategies. In 2009 he was awarded a Ph.D H.C. by Umea University, Sweden and the following year named Professor in Art History.
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Uli Sigg (Switzerland) [Image: Uli Sigg_s.jpg] |
Uli Sigg is a member of the International Council of New York MOMA and International Advisory Council of Tate Gallery, London. He is currently serving as member of the Advisory Board of China Development Bank and other Chinese entities. In 1995, he was appointed by the Swiss federal government ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia.
Sigg is the world's leading collector of Chinese contemporary arts. His over 2,000 Collection has been described as one of the most significant and comprehensive "documentations" of Chinese contemporary arts. Sigg donated the majority of his Collection to WKCDA in June 2012. He has also been active in promoting Chinese contemporary arts, in 1997 he established the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA), an art award for Chinese contemporary artists living in China, and in 2007, the CCAA Art Critic Award.
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Reserve Jurors |
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Joanlin Au (Hong Kong SAR, China) [Image: Joanlin Au_s.jpg] |
Joanlin Au is a practising architect and is the founder of JA Design Architects Limited. As a Chinese-ink artist with works in private collections, her appreciation of visual art has in turn endowed her with an astute awareness of aesthetics in architecture. She believes that architecture should be "an honest expression of the structure, balancing aesthetic beauty with the advancement of building technology".
Her practice was awarded the "Best Layout Award" from HKIS Property Market Award for their Gough Hill Road Project, First Prize for the Ship Street Revitalisation Project in Wanchai (Hong Kong) and an Honorable Mention for the Public Housing in the New Era of Hong Kong Housing Authority. Joanlin is the ex-Vice President of the HKIA, and actively serves society through participation in community service.
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Yuko Hasegawa (Japan)
[Image: Yuko Hasegawa_s.jpg] |
Yuko Hasegawa is a Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and also a professor of the Department of Art Science, Tama Art University in Tokyo. She was a Founding Artistic Director of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa 1999 - 2006.
From 2008 she is a member of Asian Art Council at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a board member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Hong Kong between 2009-2010, and the Artistic Director of Inujima House Project Japan in 2010. She is currently working as a curator, for Art HK Projects 2012 and Sharjah Biennial 2013. She is a Member of CIMAM and AICA.
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Annex 2
Selection Process of the Concept Design and Design Team for M+
1. Interested parties submit Expression of Interest ("EOI") to WKCDA to pre-qualify for the design competition of M+ by 15 October 2012.
2. The EOI submissions will be assessed against a set of criteria measuring their professional capability, past experience and track record, resources, as well as sustainability of building design demonstrated in the design team's previous work.
3. The WKCDA Management will make an initial recommendation of up to 30 entries for Jury Panel's consideration. The Jury Panel will then shortlist from all EOI submissions up to six teams for the approval of WKCDA. Names of the shortlisted design teams will be posted on WKCDA's website in December 2012.
4. The shortlisted design teams will be invited to produce and submit concept designs, models, etc. Upon satisfactory completion of the submission, they will be compensated with a fee of HK$1,000,000.
5. The competition process involves an initial shared briefing session and workshops for the shortlisted design teams. It will conclude with the submission of the required deliverables and a presentation to, and interview by, the Jury Panel in March 2013. The selected team will be recommended to WKCDA's Development Committee and the Board for appointment to design and administer the M+ construction project in mid 2013.
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