M+ opens Herzog & de Meuron archive to reveal the thinking behind ten Chinese projects

M+ in Hong Kong is marking its fifth anniversary with Herzog & de Meuron: In Focus, an exhibition that turns the architectural archive into a way of reading the built city. Open from 12 September 2026 to 10 January 2027 in the M+ Focus Gallery, the show follows ten projects in China from 2002 to 2021, including the museum itself, Tai Kwun and Beijing’s National Stadium.

More than 200 objects from the Basel practice’s second major donation to the M+ Collections bring the work into view at close range. Models, prototypes, sketches and archival material reveal decisions that are often hidden once a building is complete, tracing how Herzog & de Meuron’s projects respond to site, material and cultural context.

An archive arranged for discovery

The exhibition borrows its display language from the Kabinett, the architectural archive founded in 2015 by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Replicas of the archive’s wooden vitrines organise the works as an open store, inviting visitors to move between drawings, models and material samples rather than encounter the practice only through finished buildings.

The arrangement places process at the centre. Studies show how ideas change through testing and research, while the range of projects reflects the firm’s sustained engagement with China’s urban transformation and its civic and cultural institutions.

From M+ to the Bird’s Nest

Among the ten projects are M+ (2012–2021) and Tai Kwun (2006–2018), both in Hong Kong, alongside Beijing’s National Stadium (2002–2008), widely known as the Bird’s Nest. The exhibition places built work alongside unbuilt proposals, showing how the studio’s architectural language developed across different programmes and places.

A fifth-anniversary donation

The new donation builds on Herzog & de Meuron’s 2023 gift of a section model of the National Stadium. Together, the collection and exhibition make the museum’s own architecture part of a broader conversation about how design connects buildings to people and place.

Project Credits

Exhibition: M+
Architecture firm: Herzog & de Meuron / @herzogdemeuron
Curator: Ikko Yokoyama, with Iris Ng
Photographers: Wilson Lam, Lok Cheng, Iwan Baan and Kevin Mak