Over a decade in the making, the crowning jewel of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon district is undoubtedly M+. Open since November 2021, the museum seeks to be on par with international institutions like New York’s MoMA or Paris’s Centre Pompidou, while still connecting to the local ecosystem. In this video, museum director Suhanya Raffel takes us on a private tour of the expansive space designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

With M+, ‘we are adding to the cultural ecology of the city, while at the same time thinking very carefully about what we need to bring to the international world,’ remarks Raffel. The building houses an array of spaces: 33 galleries, three cinemas, a media center, restaurants, and a rooftop garden with a view over Victoria Harbour. An LED façade reaches out to the world as a curatorial space for screenings – which can be seen from Hong Kong Island.

In this special episode of Meet the institutions, Raffel focuses on four significant works of art, examining concepts of national identity; the physical act of creation; abstraction and ink traditions; and the connection between Eastern and Western cultures. She notes that this bridging of cultures is a central goal of M+, ‘That dynamic between being together, being human together but also being very different together, means something profound in our world today.’