hong kong palace museum creates modern new home for chinese antiquities

housing the national treasures of china and hong kong

Rocco Design Associates celebrates the completion of its Hong Kong Palace Museum, a flagship project of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) development. Standing as a new center for Chinese art and antiquities, the building will house more than nine hundred objects from the Beijing Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, including 160 Class-A artifacts, or ‘national treasures.’

The museum introduces a civic hub and new landmark for Hong Kong, as well as a platform to connect new generations with China’s cultural history. It will include experiential exhibitions to cast a new light on antiquities of Hong Kong through an interactive lens.

image © Edmon Leong | @edmonleong

a vertical stack of sequential courtyards

The Hong Kong Palace Museum is perched along the western tip of the West Kowloon Cultural District, facing out toward sweeping views across Victoria Harbor. The architects at Rocco Design Associates curate the project to bring Chinese heritage to modern audiences, reinterpreting ancient Chinese spatial concepts through a contemporary architectural lens.

Based on the concept of spatial exploration through sequential courtyards in the Beijing Palace itself, the museum takes shape as a stack of three atria which draws visitors upward through the building. The vertical stacking references Hong Kong’s dense and compact urban fabric, and also preserves as much open space and landscaped areas on the ground level as possible.

image © Rocco Design

inside the atria of the hong kong palace museum

The three atriums of the Hong Kong Palace Museum offer panoramic vistas of the city and surroundings in different directions. The entrance atrium is oriented towards the east, with a vista towards the Xiqu Centre at the eastern end of the West Kowloon Cultural District. The South Atrium and outdoor viewing deck are rotated towards the south, offering visitors commanding views of Hong Kong’s iconic skyline and is set to become one of the museum’s most ‘Instagrammable’ spots.

The uppermost Western Atrium is yet again rotated towards the west, with views of Lantau Island and the South China Sea in the distance. The atria make the social heart of the Museum, where guests can gather to discuss the art on display, enjoy views over the surroundings, and contemplate the art they have seen. They can experience the present city in an unparalleled way and envision the future with the Lantau reclamation project now being promoted.

image © Edmon Leong

Approaching the building, visitors pass through a grand elevated plaza that can host installations and performances of traditional ceremonies and dance. The Museum’s entrance pavilion frames the plaza, recalling the gates of the Forbidden City. Beyond, guests enter a vast lobby where they can relax, chat, and learn about the exhibitions on view. 

An undulating bronze ceiling articulates the space, referencing the gold Beijing Palace roofs, unfolding to accompany a circulation spine that extends the full height of the building, enhancing vertical connectivity and bringing natural light streaming down from above. This ceiling acts as an orientating and sculptural element, adding accent to the space’s refined palette of stone and polished concrete walls and floors. 

image © Hong Kong Palace Museum

touring the galleries

The spine winds through three levels of galleries that offer 7,800 square-meters (84,000 square-feet) of total exhibition space. The galleries will display a collection of objects from as early as the Jin dynasty (AD 226–420) including painting, calligraphy, rare books, and decorative art including gold, bronze, and jade items. 

While most of the galleries have displays that are relatively long-term, a double-height thematic gallery on the fourth floor will house displays that are rotated frequently, and may embrace innovative curatorial experiences, including participatory and technologically enhanced exhibitions. This is also a venue where treasures from different countries — including exhibits from the Louvre in the opening exhibition—can be displayed in dialogue with the treasures from Beijing.

The Museum also includes a 400-seat lecture theatre that hosts public programs and film screenings, activity rooms, and a ground-floor restaurant and shop that create an active edge on the Art Park and harbor-front walkways. 

image © Rocco Design

image © Rocco Design

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image © Freeman Lau

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image © Edmon Leong

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vertical spatial sequence of atria

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physical model

physical model

physical model

physical model

project info:

project title: Hong Kong Palace Museum | @hongkongpalacemuseum

architecture: Rocco Design Architects Associates Ltd | @roccodesignarchitects

location: West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong

completion: 2022

photography: © Rocco Design, Edmon Leong | @edmonleong

team: Rocco Yim, CM Chan, Freddie Hai, Hoi-Wai Sze, Ryan Leong, William Lee, Kwong-Kiu Wong, Qingyue Li, Doris Yue, Samuel Wong, Bong Yeung, Thomas Cheng, Elaine Tsui, Felix Chow, Pak-Chuen Chan, Victor Chu

consultants: Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Ltd., Rider Levett Bucknall Ltd.

construction: China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) Ltd.