In January 2014, VPANG + JET Architecture + Lisa Cheung were appointed by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) to design the Arts Pavilion after achieving first prize in its single-stage international design competition. The winning team was chosen from 100 entries.
The winning Canadian-based and Hong Kong teams will work together with the WKCDA to design a pavilion in the park at West Kowloon Cultural District, intended for artists, designers and organizations to stage independent small-scale exhibitions and events.
The pavilion, scheduled to be ready by 2015, anticipates the 2017 completion of M+, a future museum for 20th– and 21st-century visual culture designed by Herzog & de Meuron with TFP Farrells as local partner architect and Arup HK as engineering consultant. The pavilion will serve as the museum’s primary site for its exhibitions to further extend the museum’s mission into the Park and public sphere.
The winning pavilion is designed to offer a respite from hectic city life, and allows the Pavilion to blend into its surroundings. Mirrored external walls camouflage the architecture, reflecting the surrounding expanses of greenery and immersing the building within its park setting. To further this experience, the pavilion’s main exhibition space is elevated, allowing it to float above the foliage, creating the opportunity for artwork to be appreciated against a backdrop of the Hong Kong Island skyline with spectacular views out over Victoria Harbour. The building is designed to be surrounded by natural light, away from noise. Inside, gallery spaces are created by polished concrete floors and white walls – a flexible backdrop for multidisciplinary art exhibitions and performance
The West Kowloon Cultural District is the largest arts and cultural project in Hong Kong to date. Its vision is to create 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. It will provide 23 hectares of public open space including ample green space, a green avenue and a harbourfront promenade, and will be closely connected with the neighbourhood.