M+

M+ is Asia's global museum of contemporary visual culture, and it is big enough to fill a whole wet day. The building by Herzog & de Meuron with Farrells opened in November 2021 on the West Kowloon waterfront. It has around 65,000 square metres of floor space, about 17,200 of them for exhibitions, with a slim tower rising over a broad, low base. After dark, LED lights built into the facade turn it into a giant screen for art, visible across Victoria Harbour. The collection is wide by design. It spans visual art, design and architecture, moving image and Hong Kong visual culture from the 20th and 21st centuries. Its anchor is the M+ Sigg Collection, one of the world's largest holdings of Chinese contemporary art, built on 1,463 works by 325 artists donated by the Swiss collector Uli Sigg. Galleries rotate themed displays drawn from the collection alongside major special exhibitions, and past headline shows have included Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now and a large exhibition on the architect I. M. Pei. A standard ticket costs HK$190, or HK$100 for concessions, and covers every gallery and exhibition. Children aged six and under do not need one. That makes M+ the most expensive museum on this list. There is a way to taste it for free, though: the Mediatheque, the Grand Stair, the B1 and B2 levels and the Found Space are open to everyone without a ticket. The Roof Garden is free too, but it is outdoors and best saved for a dry spell. On Fridays the museum stays open until 10pm, so it is the one place on the list where a rainy evening can still turn into a long museum visit.