West Bund Museum

The West Bund Museum (西岸美术馆, Xī’àn Měishùguǎn), at 2600 Longteng Avenue in Xuhui, is a large art museum on the Huangpu riverfront, designed by the British architect David Chipperfield and opened in November 2019. Come for its exhibitions of works from the Centre Pompidou in Paris and for the building, which is easy to pick out along the river.

Chinese Wikipedia and Wikidata both give the opening as 8 November 2019, while the Centre Pompidou dates the inauguration of its partnership to 6 November. The partnership began on that date for an initial five years, and the Pompidou says a contract signed on 24 November 2023 renews it for five more. Dezeen reports that the arrangement was announced in 2017 through a memorandum of understanding between the Centre Pompidou and The West Bund Group, and that it was the Pompidou’s second outpost outside France, after Málaga in 2015. Chinese Wikipedia describes the programme as three permanent exhibitions of at least 18 months each, plus about ten special exhibitions of around six months each, across the five years.

The site is a former industrial stretch of the riverbank, now part of the West Bund development. According to Dezeen, the museum is built as three volumes arranged in a pinwheel, each 17 metres high with two storeys above ground and two below. They fan out from a two-storey lobby with a double-height atrium. Each volume is clad in translucent recycled glass, broken by large windows that frame views of the city, and the lobby roofs reach beyond the building on tapering columns. Chinese Wikipedia gives the total construction area as 25,000 square metres.

Outside, a public boulevard runs around the museum, with steps down to the river and a riverside park. Inside there is a rooftop terrace and a river-edge cafe, and Dezeen lists a bookshop and cafe in the lobby.

Practical details come from secondary sources only. Chinese Wikipedia lists exhibition areas as open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, with weekday tickets of 70 yuan for the permanent exhibition, 90 yuan for special exhibitions and 150 yuan for a combined ticket. Prices and hours change, so confirm them with the museum before you set out.