Ole Bouman, previously the head of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, has been named as the director of the upcoming Shekou Design Museum in Shenzhen, China.

The new Design Museum is a joint collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and China Merchants Property Development Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate China Merchants Group (CMG).

Bouman, who has a deep interest and involvement with all things architecture and design, was creative director for the fifth Shenzhen Architecture and Urbanism Biennale in 2013/14 and will take up his new role this month (January 2015) as director of the new museum.

In a statement confirming his appointment, Bouman said: “It is really exciting to work on the next stage of this development by fostering a new quality agenda in design culture and industry, presented to a large audience, in one of the most pioneering cities of the world.”


A rendering of how the proposed Design Museum will look. China Merchants Property Development & Maki and Associates.

Planned to open at the end of 2016, The Shekou Design Museum will form part of a wider ‘Sea World Arts and Cultural Centre’ also being funded by CMG. Shenzhen is China’s first city to be appointed a UNESCO city of design and creative industry.

With this in mind, the 70,000sq m (753,473sq ft) development is being designed by the Pritzker Prize winning architect, Fumihiko Maki of Maki and Associates. The development will not only have the design museum, but also a branch of the Guanfu Museum and a retail area.