M+ Museum

M+ is the museum that put Hong Kong on the global art map when it opened in November 2021, and it is now one of the most important museums of contemporary visual culture in the world. It sits on the waterfront of the West Kowloon Cultural District, a vast reclaimed site that has become the city's arts quarter, in a building designed by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron: a broad horizontal podium of galleries topped by a slender vertical slab, whose harbour-facing facade doubles as a giant LED screen that plays artworks across the water at night. Inside are some 33 galleries over several floors, built around a collection that spans visual art, design and architecture, and moving image from Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia and beyond. The core is the gift of the Swiss collector Uli Sigg's collection of contemporary Chinese art, one of the most important in existence, alongside design objects from Japanese furniture to Hong Kong neon signs, architectural models and archives, and a deep moving-image collection shown in the museum's own cinemas. Exhibitions change regularly, and major shows such as Myths and Monsters: The Art of Fantasy in Asia and the family-friendly Design Ah! have filled the special exhibition halls in 2026. Several areas are free, including the Mediatheque, the B1 and B2 spaces and the Found Space, and the free Roof Garden on the third floor has one of the best views of the Hong Kong Island skyline. A standard ticket covers all the galleries and exhibitions, with concessions for students, children, seniors and people with disabilities, and children six and under go free.

Plan around the opening days: M+ is closed on Mondays (except some public holidays), open from 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Thursday and at weekends, and stays open until 10pm on Fridays, when the galleries are quieter and the building glows over the harbour. Last admission is half an hour before closing. Allow at least three hours; serious art and design lovers can spend a full day. The museum occasionally runs free-admission days and evening events, and it adjusts hours for special occasions, so check the official visit page before you go. Book tickets online in advance for weekends; on weekdays you can usually walk in. The ground-floor Grand Stair, which doubles as an auditorium, and the Found Space, where the tunnel of the Airport Express runs beneath the building, are worth seeing even if you skip the paid galleries.

The highlights depend on the rotating displays, but look for the Sigg collection's works by Chinese artists from the Cultural Revolution era to the present, the design galleries with the reconstructed Kiyotomo sushi bar by the Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata, the Hong Kong visual culture displays, including neon and local graphic design, and the architecture galleries, which tell stories of the city's own buildings. The M+ shop is one of the best museum shops in Asia for design books and gifts, and there are restaurants and a bar with harbour views, plus the M+ Lounge. Outside, the Art Park, a large lawn on the waterfront, is perfect for a picnic, sunset and skyline photographs.

M+ is next to the Hong Kong Palace Museum, and combining the two makes a superb culture day: Chinese imperial treasures in one, modern Asian art and design in the other, a ten-minute walk apart across the park. The Xiqu Centre, for Cantonese opera, and the Freespace performance venue are nearby too. Getting there: from Kowloon station (on the Tung Chung and Airport Express lines) it is a ten-minute walk; from Tsim Sha Tsui, take a short taxi or the bus, or walk along Canton Road and the waterfront in about twenty minutes. The Star Ferry does not stop at West Kowloon, but the harbour-front walk from the Tsim Sha Tsui pier is pleasant in cooler months.