Photographer Kris Provoost has captured new images of Herzog & de Meuron's M+ Museum in Hong Kong. Focusing on 20th and 21st century art, design, architecture and moving image, M+ will be the centerpiece of the West Kowloon Cultural District, and a key venue in creating interdisciplinary exchange between the visual arts and the performing arts in Asia.
Provoost has photographed the M+ construction over the last two years, and now in June 2020, the exterior is nearly complete. In October 2018, Provoost ventured out to the site for the first time to capture the bare structure of the museum. The images show a clear massing, an upside down T-shape is at it’s purest, before the facade started to be applied. On various occasions after this, throughout 2019 and 2020, he continued the documentation to capture the rapid installation of the facade. In the last set, taken just last week, the project is seen in the context of the park, overlooking the famous Victoria Harbour.
M+ was first revealed in 2013. In order to create a “radical space” for installations and performances, Herzog & de Meuron designed the museum to connect directly to the Airport Express via an underground tunnel in an effort to challenge artists and curators with an unprecedented exhibition space. The building has been designed in partnership with Hong Kong-based TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & partners.
The spaces range from the conventional white cube, reconfigurable spaces, screening rooms and multipurpose facilities to so-called third spaces and even an “Industrial Space". Combined with an L-shaped Black Box, a reconfigurable Studio Space, direct access to the loading dock as well as a large part of the storage area, a sunken forum and (exhibition) topography have been created.
As Herzog & de Meuron have stated, the precise urban 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.
