SUHANYA RAFFEL: It’s a very prominent site right on Victoria Harbour. It’s going to be one of those key buildings. It will be a benchmark building for museums in the region, without question; but, I think, a landmark in Hong Kong as well.

ASCAN MERGENTHALER: It’s always a very rewarding moment, because you have renderings, you have models, you have plans, you have drawings, but then there’s nothing like the real thing, you know. The real thing is always so convincing, and always revealing also. Because of course you think you have thought through everything, but then there’s always surprises, you know, and discoveries.

PIERRE DE MEURON: Because this is in a gallery, so you go from one light space to another light space and then you have those dark thresholds.

JACQUES HERZOG: Then I would suggest that we make a sample even brighter than this.

I mean, this is very beautiful, there is no doubt. As soon as there is light on it, this is so elegant, you know.

SUHANYA RAFFEL: Well, the anticipation of walking into that building after looking at drawings, going and speaking with architects, working with all of the curators on early displays—it suddenly made you feel that this is a museum now; we’re going to be delivering something. And the spaces—looking at the spaces made you feel this is real. This is very, very imminent.

JACQUES HERZOG: I think that’s a key element of this design—you know, that we reveal structure. And the structure that we reveal is to do with the main idea of the project, which is this Found Space. This is what makes this project so different from all others.

ELISABETH MUNDY: It’s a very complicated and unique project. There are a lot of constraints that come with this building. It’s running above a live Airport Express mass transit line right underneath it, and that alone; structurally, for me, it’s a great building.

JOHNNY WONG: (Translated from Cantonese) We cannot apply any pressure onto [the tunnel], so we build these mega-trusses allowing the building to be built above it. This is the first time that this method has been applied at a construction site in Hong Kong.

KATRINA CHOW: (Translated from Cantonese) We are like friends. Our colleagues are like a big family. We eat and chat together; we also help each other.

ANDREW SIMPSON: The tiles themselves are made from mineral components. It’s essentially natural clays that are developed. These are then cleaned and filtered, and then they’re extruded through a mould in this factory in Italy.

But at that location, there is a strong culture and a history of working with ceramics, so it’s actually an excellent solution for us. We’re dealing with people who are real experts in their field and true craftsmen.

Then they go through a series of quality assurance; quality checking. And then they’re very carefully packed into crates, and then they’re shipped over to China, where they’ll be assembled into the precast units.

WIM WALSCHAP: Perfect, perfect, perfect concrete and a little bit of life.

ANDREW SIMPSON: Well, it’s the most precise groove that I’ve seen.

WIM WALSCHAP: So far it is.

AU KA FAI: (Translated from Cantonese) The [facade system] performance mock-up test aims to find out how flexible the facade is with respect to its resistance to wind, storm water, and air. Three major aspects.

ANDREW SIMPSON: It won’t be simply ceramic tiles on a wall. You’ll read all of these hues, all of these different colours. All of the texture will all combine to make this building something that you’ll probably never see the same way twice, so that’s going to be truly wonderful.