On September 12, M+ Hong Kong will open a major retrospective dedicated to Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel-based architectural practice that designed the museum’s striking brutalist structure. The exhibition arrives as M+ celebrates its fifth anniversary, making it part gift, part homecoming. It’s rare for a museum to mount a career-spanning show from the architects of its own skin, but M+ is betting that the connection deepens the story both of the building and the practice that shaped it.
Herzog & de Meuron, founded by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in 1978, have spent the last four decades producing some of the world’s most recognizable cultural architecture. Beyond M+, their portfolio spans the Tate Modern conversion in London, the Walker Art Center expansion in Minneapolis, and the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing. Their work tends toward raw materiality and bold geometric gestures that don’t shy from heaviness or presence. M+ itself, with its sculptural massing and fortress-like presence overlooking Victoria Harbour, fits squarely in that lineage. The building opened to the public in November 2021 and has become one of Hong Kong’s most visited cultural institutions.
This retrospective is more than a vanity project for the architects: it’s a chance for visitors to understand the deliberate choices behind every corridor, gallery volume, and view line they’ve moved through. By celebrating Herzog & de Meuron at the moment of M+’s fifth anniversary, the museum transforms a milestone into a deeper conversation about how architecture shapes culture and experience.
