INDIA / Calcutta: The KMOMA by Herzog & de Meuron | Modem Mag

New museum

The city of Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) prepares to build the largest museum of modern art in Asia, to be completed in 2015.

The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that "KMOMA will generate employment through art and the city will once again emerge as an unparalleled leader in the field of art and aesthetics."

The Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has designed the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art as a world-class museum to host a permanent collection of both Asian and Western art. Located in New Town, Rajarhat, in east Kolkata, the nine-story building will feature 44 galleries, an auditorium, a library, and an amphitheatre. Over 75,000 square feet in total, it will cost $90.5 million.
Herzog & de Meuron, who designed the Tate Modern, took their inspiration from temple architecture to create a design that synthesizes eastern and western influences.

According to KMOMA's managing trustee Rakhi Sarkar, the museum project is "the grandest project in almost five decades, since the construction of the city of Chandigarh in the 1950s by French architect Le Corbusier."