Hong Kong tycoon expands to Shenzhen with cultural complex

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
23 Jul 2022 23:56

Adrian Cheng, Hong Kong collector and real estate mogul, announces K11 culture-meets-commerce enterprise in Shenzhen.

Adrian Cheng

Adrian Cheng, a real estate mogul and mega-collector from Hong Kong, has announced the launch of his K11 culture-meets-commerce enterprise in mainland China.

A sizable cultural and retail complex, to be called K11 Ecoast, is being planned for Shenzhen's waterfront, situated at Prince Bay in the Nanshan neighborhood, which is home to one of the nation's fastest-growing upscale areas.

It will have an office building, a promenade, and a multifunctional art space spread across an area of more than 2.4 million square feet. The facility is worth $1.4 billion, according to K11 Group.

For the project, Cheng has teamed up with fifty "world-leading" artists and architects, among which are the UK's David Chipperfield, Rem Koolhaas's OMA, and the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.

To produce public artworks "in honor of Shenzhen's unique culture," Chinese and foreign artists have been enlisted. Phyllida Barlow from the UK and Monika Sosnowska from Poland are two of the collaborators on the project.

K11, a culture-commerce hybrid that was founded in 2008, runs a seven-story art mall in Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui, as well as the adjoining K11 Musea, which it describes on its website as "an incubator of art and the artisanal."

The upcoming project is being jointly constructed by China Merchants Shekou Holdings in Shenzhen and New World Development Company Limited, the parent company of K11, as well as a well-known real estate developer in Hong Kong. It is a component of a plan by the mainland government to turn the nine southern cities of the nation into economic and cultural hubs by the year 2035.