All activities / Museums & Galleries / West Kowloon
Museums & Galleries in West Kowloon
A reclaimed waterfront district on the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbour, home to the West Kowloon Cultural District, one of the largest arts quarters built anywhere this century. Its 40 hectares of harbourfront gather M+, the Hong Kong Palace Museum, the Xiqu Centre for Chinese opera and the Freespace performance venue around a long harbourside park.
Why here
West Kowloon is Hong Kong's bet that it can be a cultural capital as well as a financial one, and it has largely paid off. Built on reclaimed land facing the harbour, the West Kowloon Cultural District brought two world-class museums online within a year of each other, and together they make the strongest reason in the city to spend a day looking at art. M+ opened in 2021 as Asia's first global museum of contemporary visual culture, a vast Herzog and de Meuron building whose harbour-facing facade doubles as a giant screen; inside, the collection spans art, design, architecture and moving image from across Asia, anchored by the M+ Sigg Collection of contemporary Chinese art, the most important holding of its kind in the world. Next door, the Hong Kong Palace Museum opened in 2022 to show more than 900 treasures on long-term loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing, many of them leaving the Forbidden City for the first time, so you can see imperial ceramics, paintings and jade a short walk from a contemporary-art blockbuster. The setting ties it together: a harbourside park, the skyline of Hong Kong Island across the water, and the Xiqu Centre nearby if you want Cantonese opera in the evening. It is a lot of culture in one walkable district, and it is why art travellers now build a trip around March's Art Basel week here.
Best months
The museums are indoor and open year-round, so this is a good rainy-day or hot-day option when the hiking and kayaking are washed out; the district is busiest during Art Basel Hong Kong in March, when the whole city's art calendar peaks. Both M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum are large; a full day does justice to both, or pick one and add the harbourfront park and a performance. Book timed tickets online ahead for the special exhibitions, which sell out. Both museums close one weekday each week, so check before you go.
Getting there & around
West Kowloon is reached from Kowloon or Austin MTR stations, a short walk from the museums, and sits beside the high-speed-rail terminus that connects to mainland China. M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum are next to each other, so both fit in one visit on foot. Buy standard admission and special-exhibition tickets online in advance, especially at weekends and during Art Basel in March. The harbourfront promenade and the Art Park link the venues and are free to walk. Allow time to clear the popular exhibitions, which run on timed entry.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (2)
Hong Kong Palace Museum
OrganizerThe Hong Kong Palace Museum opened on 3 July 2022 at 8 Museum Drive in the West Kowloon Cultural District, timed to the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover. It presents more than 900 treasures on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing, the collection of the former imperial Forbidden City, including ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, bronzes and jade, many shown in Hong Kong for the first time. Rotating exhibitions add loans from institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
M+
OrganizerM+ is Asia's first global museum of contemporary visual culture, opened in November 2021 in the West Kowloon Cultural District in a building by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron whose harbour-facing facade carries a giant LED screen for moving-image works. Its collection spans visual art, design and architecture, and moving image from Hong Kong, the wider region and beyond, and is anchored by the M+ Sigg Collection, the foremost holding of contemporary Chinese art in the world.