Hong Kong’s ambitious West Kowloon Cultural District project has found a director for its USD 609 million Museum Plus (M+) initiative. Lars Nittve, outgoing director of Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, will be in charge of seeing into fruition the interdisciplinary museum, which will focus on 20th- and 21st-century visual culture through four key departments: design, popular culture, moving images and visual arts. Nittve brings with him extensive experience. Prior to Moderna Museet, he had served as director of Tate Modern in London, director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen and founding director of the Malmö art center Rooseum. According to the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Nittve will be involved in the planning, design and curatorial development of M+, as well as the building of its collection. The first phase of M+ is scheduled for completion in 2015, with a second phase scheduled for 2031. First proposed in 1998 and funded by the government, the long-gestating West Kowloon Cultural District has been earmarked a total budget of over $2.5 billion for construction and operation, and will feature theaters, concert halls and other cultural venues in addition to M+. Nittve will assume his post in January 2011. He is being replaced at Moderna Museet by the curator and philosopher Daniel Birnbaum, formerly rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt and artistic director of the 2009 Venice Biennale.
