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Nearly two decades in the making, the M+ museum in Hong Kong has ambitions to be the leading cultural institution in Asia—and one of the best in the world. This month, it finally opens to the public

- Oliver Giles

I feel so restless,” says Suhanya Raffel, museum director of M+, the colossal new institution for art, architecture and design, and moving images that stands dramatically on the edge of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. It’s a sunny Friday in late September, exactly 49 days before the museum officially opens. “An institution without an audience is like a person without a soul,” says Raffel. “Our visitors are the last missing piece.”

On November 12, that piece will finally fall into place when M+ opens its doors to the public, giving Hongkongers a look inside a museum that has been nearly two decades in the making. Admission for all Hong Kong residents will be free for the first year. “We are hoping to attract approximately half a million people in the first six months but, once the borders reopen, I am sure that we will have many more,” says Raffel. “I hope they will understand why it took so long. All good things take time.”

The museum sits at the heart of the West Kowloon Cultural District, a 40-hectare, wedge-shaped plot of reclaimed land that juts off the tip of the Kowloon peninsula. By most measures, it is the largest development dedicated to the arts under construction anywhere in the world. It will eventually be home to 17 institutions, including the Xiqu Centre for traditional Chinese theatre, which opened in January 2019, and the Hong Kong Palace Museum, an outpost of the gallery headquartered at the Forbidden City in Beijing, due to open in 2022.