100 creatives, 10 years, 1 vision: how Hong Kong’s K11 Musea, part shopping mall, part museum, came to life

K11 Musea, Hong Kong’s new cultural-retail destination, shows what can happen when 100 creative collaborators are brought together and given free rein

Helmed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, James Corner Field Operations, and Ronald Lu & Partners, the project spans 1.2 million square feet over 10 floors

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K11 Musea mastermind Adrian Cheng, New World Development’s executive vice-chairman and general manager, started with a vision to redevelop the waterfront site acquired in the 1970s by his grandfather, the late billionaire tycoon Cheng Yu-tung. Photo: Tory Ho

Published: 12:15pm, 2 Dec 2019Updated: 12:31pm, 2 Dec 2019

Is it a museum or a shopping mall? K11 Musea, the new cultural-retail destination anchoring Hong Kong’s revitalised Victoria Dockside precinct, straddles both. It shows what can happen when 100 creative collaborators are brought together and basically given free rein – not only with artistic expression, but also purse strings – to realise a 10-year dream.

It began with the vision of Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, executive vice-chairman of property giant New World Development, to redevelop the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront site acquired in the 1970s by his grandfather, the late billionaire tycoon Cheng Yu-tung. The patriarch built the New World Centre, a complex comprising retail, hotel, residential and office space, on the plot, one of the largest commercial complexes in the world at the time of its opening.

Adrian Cheng founded the K11 brand as an “art meets commerce” business model in 2008, a concept that has since expanded to residences and workspaces. With five K11 art malls already under his belt – one in Hong Kong, four in mainland China, and a pipeline of future locations including the Chinese cities Tianjin and Wuhan – Cheng reimagined the place where his family’s real estate empire began as “the Silicon Valley of culture”.

As part of a larger Kowloon waterfront redevelopment, K11 Musea, which spans a massive 1.2 million square feet (111,000 square metres) over 10 floors, was to be the most luxurious art mall of them all, with patrons moving among museum-quality artworks, sculptures and vintage furniture as they shopped.

K11 Musea facade. Photo: Courtesy of K11 Musea

The international and local creative cast, helmed by “starchitects” Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), James Corner Field Operations, and Ronald Lu & Partners, also includes Arup, Speirs and Major, OMA, Urbis, LAAB Architects, AB Concept, and Leigh & Orange.

The development’s facade is crafted from rare Portuguese limestone, a warm and durable material that lead architect Forth Bagley, principal at KPF, reasoned would suggest a lifestyle precinct, rather than a commercial building. Its fluid design draws inspiration from the harbour, stepped to form an active hill of green terraces planted with tropical foliage by Thailand’s PLandscape.