Adjaye Associates chosen for new cultural powerhouse that is
anticipated to become the leading privately-funded institution for
the arts in India
Mrs Kiran Nadar and Sir David Adjaye OBE RA announced today [9 May 2019] at the Venice Biennale that Adjaye Associates has won the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art & Kiran Nadar Cultural Center International Design Competition. The global search to find an outstanding team to design a contemporary art museum combined with a cultural center for dance, music and creative education was led by competition specialists Malcolm Reading Consultants. This new destination, to be known as the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art & Cultural Center (KNMACC), has a joint vision focused on education, young people and the power of creativity.
The new building, in New Delhi NCR, will enable KNMA, which has a world-class collection of Indian Modern and contemporary art, to build on its remarkable success to date. The competition launched in the second half of 2018 when a long-list of 47 leading studios from 15 countries was invited to participate in the contest’s first stage.
At stage two, a shortlist of five practices was asked to create concept designs. They were (in alphabetical order):
- Adjaye Associates (UK)
- Ennead Architects (US)
- Selldorf Architects (US)
- Snøhetta (Norway)
- Thomas Phifer and Partners (US)
Adjaye Associates was the unanimous choice of the international jury (see full details below). The team’s ‘veil of triangles’ design, a reference to the sacred geometries of trees and mountains, was praised for being both elegant and iconic; in the words of the jury, it was ‘a visually and emotionally engaging building that was alive, dancing and timeless’.
The full jury was comprised of:
- Kiran Nadar, Chair, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
- Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Executive Director and CEO, HCL Enterprise
- Shikhar Malhotra, Vice Chairman, HCL Healthcare
- Malcolm Reading, Competition Director (Jury Chair)
- Glenn D Lowry, Director, MoMA, New York
- Chris Dercon, Art Historian, Curator, and former Director, Tate Modern
- Scott Newman, Partner, Cooper Robertson
Each of the five shortlisted practices received an honorarium of £25,000 plus expenses for travel to India.
