A Hub for Cultural Engagement and Urban Development
Ole Scheeren has revealed plans for the Róng Museum of Art in Shenzhen, China, designed for the founder of Chinese tech giant Tencent. The museum will form the cornerstone of the Houhai Hybrid Campus, a city-center commercial district also designed by Scheeren’s practice, Büro Ole Scheeren.
The museum’s design features five sculptural pavilions suspended above a public plaza, creating an “art forum” that’s open 24 hours a day. The pavilions will be faced with parametric glass tubes, providing shading, ventilation, and rainwater collection. The museum will focus on 20th and 21st-century visual culture, with nearly half of its 4,500 square meters devoted to gallery space, including an education space and public art library.
“What is significant is that the founder of Tencent, one of China’s most successful innovation businesses, is using his company’s position at the forefront of China’s tech industry to open new ground for culture and urban development,” said Ole Scheeren, Founder, Büro Ole Scheeren. “Around the world, most tech environments are relentlessly self-focused. Here, the ambition is to chart a different path by investing in public space, cultural venues and education, and to use economic success to underwrite a deeper, more generous engagement with the city and wider society.”
The museum is expected to complete in early 2027, ahead of the wider campus completion later that year. This project reflects China’s tech entrepreneurs’ growing ambition to contribute to public life and cultural infrastructure.
