Ole Bouman, former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), has been appointed director of the new Victoria and Albert Museum-backed Shekou Design Museum in Shenzhen, China. Set to open at the end of 2016 in a Fumihiko Maki-designed building within the Sea World Arts and Culture Center, the new design museum aims to serve as an international platform for Chinese design.
“We wanted to offer the local residents an internationally important museum that would help promote the development of China’s creative industries and further progress design in China,” stated China Merchants Group (CMG) vice president Sun Chengming. CMG is collaborating with London’s V&A to realize the project.
More about Bouman’s appointment, after the break.
“[Bouman] has a strong track record of finding innovative formats to produce, present, explore and discuss design, which we believe will be very beneficial to the Shekou Design Museum," said Zhang Lin, vice general manager of China Merchants Group.
"The museum aims to become a platform for promoting new design ideas in China as well as introducing the best international design to China. We hope Bouman’s appointment, alongside our collaboration with the V&A to establish the Shekou Design Museum, will help to encourage a wider understanding of design in China and increase productive dialogue between the design communities in China and the rest of the world."
V&A director Martin Roth has focused a great amount of effort on expanding the museum’s reach; a V&A exhibition space is planned for the Olympicopolis culture hub in Stratford, east London, while its Kengo Kuma-designed satellite venue in Dundee is expected to open in 2017.
For more on Bouman's ideas about the profession, watch the exclusive ArchDaily interview (originally filmed during the 13th Venice Biennale) below:
News via China Merchants Group, V&A, Museums Assocation, Dezeen, Contract
