Contemporary Interpretation Of Traditional Architecture

Inspired by the iconic Beijing Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, the new Hong Kong Palace Museum was designed to house and display priceless national treasures.

- Sasha Gonzales

Opened to the public in July 2022, Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) is a new centre for Chinese art and antiquities in Hong Kong.

It is home to more than 900 national treasures from the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Many of the pieces are displayed in Hong Kong for the first time or never been shown to the public before.

The seven-storey building was conceived as a civic hub and new landmark for Hong Kong, as well as a platform to connect young generations with China's cultural history. The 30,000 sqm museum will also host interactive and experiential exhibitions.

Beyond the three levels of galleries with 7,800 sqm of total exhibition space, the museum boasts a 400-seat lecture theatre for public programmes and film screenings.

Bringing chinese heritage to modern audiences

HKPM was designed by the Hong Kong-based Rocco Design Architects (RDA). One of the key architectural highlights of HKPM is its "vertical central axis" concept a spatial reinterpretation of its horizontal counterpart in the Forbidden City.

Leveraging on the building's location - at the western tip of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) and along the Victoria Harbour waterfront - the architects translated the notion of linked courtyards into a series of stacked atriums that connect the museum's floors and draw visitors upwards through the nine galleries. Each of the three atriums faces a different direction along the central axis across the ground, second and fourth floors.

"The atriums offer views over the WKCD, Hong Kong's iconic skyline and Lantau Island respectively, allowing visitors to experience the perfect harmony created between the museum building and its surroundings," says Freddie Hai, Director of RDA.