Norman Foster wins the assignment to design the master plan for the West Kowloon Cultural District that Hong Kong is building to anchor its investment in the arts as a driver of the free city’s future growth as a hub in South Asia. Robin Pogrebin sums up the announcement made on Friday, March 4th:

Mr. Foster was selected after an international competition that started with 109 firms, of which 12 were invited to compete. Three firms were ultimately asked to produce detailed proposals. The other two were Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture, based in Rotterdam, and Rocco Design Architects Limited, a Hong Kong firm.

Mr. Foster’s design, developed over a yearlong public consultation, features cultural buildings in a new urban quarter alongside an expansive public park. In a statement, he called the project “unprecedented in its scale, scope and vision”

Norman Foster to Design Huge Hong Kong Cultural District (Arts Beat/New York Times)