‘We only pick stores that have craftsmanship
or heritage and, at the same time, are innovative and
embrace technology in a serious way. These are the
ones that millennials feel are relevant,’ says Cheng.
Online services include in-mall mobile digital
guided tours, an app enabling customers to click and
collect purchases and navigate the art, architecture
and furniture on show. There are also plans to add
a digital graffiti canvas where visitors can create their
own artwork. ‘Millennials want to connect and be with
like-minded people. They just buy and spend in their
own pattern,’ Cheng explains.
Inside, the look is decidedly luxurious. Walls are
clad with intricate arrangements of curved ribbon-like
aluminium panels finished in a natural rust effect.
Inspired by the site’s industrial past, a striking
chandelier of tangled iron tubes, custom-designed
by Maxim Velčovský, art director of Czech glass
specialist Lasvit, pumps out steam at the 15m-high main
entrance. Beyond that, in the vast atrium, a dramatic
gold ball, 10.4m in diameter, is comprised of spherical
chambers that will house exhibitions and events.
Outdoors, there are public artworks, a coffee
kiosk designed by OMA with a 14m-diameter, 4m-tall
inflatable disc that will act as signage to highlight
major events, and a 185 sq m sunken amphitheatre withcurved glass panels, a giant LED screen and
a programmed water wall that will be used for K11
Musea’s film festivals and live concerts. The street-
facing façade features more green walls and a metal
screen by Thai design studio P Landscape.
Contemporary art is a key feature throughout.
Highlights include Elmgreen & Dragset’s 9m-high
Van Gogh’s Ear (initially displayed outside New York’s
Rockefeller Center); a bright yellow Hot Dog Bus
installation by Erwin Wurm; and Chinese artist Zhang
Enli’s Parrots of Five Colours, a specially commissioned
artwork featuring a painted dome ceiling. Level three
is dedicated to street fashion and graffiti, with an
extraordinary cacophony of works by artists such as
Adrian Wong, Ron English and Geng Yini. Meanwhile,
Cheng’s K11 Craft & Guild Foundation exhibitions will
focus on traditional Chinese crafts in pop-up displays
throughout K11 Musea.
It certainly doesn’t feel much like a traditional
shopping mall, and this is perhaps the most radical
potential impact of the scheme: that it offers a serious
attempt to break away from conventions and reconsider
the traditional physical shopping environment. That
in itself makes it astonishingly fresh and progressive. ∂
K11 Musea will open in autumn 2019, 18 Salisbury Road,
Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong , k11musea.comLEFT, THE ATRIUM’S SKYLIGHTS
ARE SURROUNDED BY
PROGRAMMABLE LIGHTING
TO CREATE SHOWS
BELOW, THE ROOFTOP URBAN
FARM, WHERE K11 MUSEA
MEMBERS WILL BE ABLE TO
GROW PLANTS, AND ENJOY
FARM-TO-TABLE DINING IN THE
ADJACENT CONSERVATORY‘I think of K11 Musea as a cultural
Silicon Valley in Victoria Dockside’
174 ∑
Architecture