Steven Holl Architects to design Mumbai City Museum North Wing in star-studded competition

Out of a super-star list of competitors, a team led by Steven Holl Architects won the competition to design the North Wing -- or the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum -- of the Mumbai City Museum in India. The museum is one of India's leading cultural institutions and is undergoing a renewal process to establish itself as a cultural destination.

The new 275 crore (approx. US $44.3 million) building will include new galleries and facilities like a library, an archive, interpretation center, conservation facilities, café, and a museum shop.

This is also the first time that an international architectural competition has been held for a public building in Mumbai.

Scroll down to find out more.

At the first stage of the competition, 104 architects worldwide expressed interest to participate.

The jury then shortlisted eight teams:

• Steven Holl Architects with Opolis Architects, Guy Nordenson and Associates, AECOM, Dongre Project Management Consultants, Transsolar and L’Observatoire
• AL_A with PK Das, Arup, Turner & Townsend, GROSS. MAX and Superflux
• Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos with Malik Architecture, Arup and Empty
• OMA + S&K with Meinhardt India, Houtman + Sander, GMD Consultants and Langdon Seah
• Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects with Christopher Charles Benninger Architects (CCBA), Leslie E. Robertson Associates International (LERA), Buro Happold, WORKSHOP: Ken Smith Landscape Architect and George Sexton Associates
• Studio Mumbai Architecture + Edifice Consultants with Sterling Engineering Consultancy Services and Eskayem Consultants
• wHY with Ganti + Associates, Sterling Engineering, Sterling and Wilson, Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Buro Happold, Local Projects and Quantsoft India
• Zaha Hadid Architects with Sameep Padora Associates (sP+a), AKT II, Max Fordham, Dan Pearson Studio and AECOM

Steven Holl Architects will begin working on design development with local architects Opolis Architects, Guy Nordenson & Associates as structural engineers, and Transsolar as sustainability consultants. Construction is expected to begin in 2015.

Below are further project details from Steven Holl Architects:

"Mumbai’s oldest museum garden in Byculla will have a 125,000 sq ft new wing. The Mumbai City Museum’s North Wing addition is envisioned as a sculpted subtraction from a simple geometry formed by the site boundaries. The concept of “Addition as Subtraction” is developed in white concrete with sculpted diffused light in the 65,000 sq ft new gallery spaces. Deeper subtractive cuts bring in exactly twenty-five lumens of natural light to each gallery."

"The basically orthogonal galleries are given a sense of flow and spatial overlap from the light cuts. The central cut forms a shaded monsoon water basin which runs into a central pool, related to the great stepped well architecture of India. The central pool joins the new and old in its reflection and provides sixty percent of the museum’s electricity through photovoltaic cells located below the water’s surface."

"The white concrete structure has an extension of local rough-cut Indian Agra stone. The circulation through the galleries is one of spatial energy, while the orthogonal layout of the walls foregrounds the Mumbai City Museum collections."

The Jury:

• Mr Sitaram Kunte – Chair of Jury, the Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai and Co-Chairman,Trustee of the Museum
• Mrs Tasneem Mehta – Deputy Chair of Jury, the Managing Trustee & Honorary Director of the Museum
• Mrs Minal Bajaj , a Director of Bajaj Auto Ltd. and a Donor Trustee of the Museum
• Mr Shyam Benegal , a Trustee of the Museum and a prolific filmmaker
• Dr Homi Bhabha , Director of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard as well as the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English
• Dr Vishakha Desai , the Special Advisor for Global Affairs and Professor of Professional Practice in the Faculty of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University
• Mr Rajiv Jalota , the Additional Municipal Commissioner, Projects, M.C.G.M., and Trustee of the Museum
• Mr Sen Kapadia , founder of Sen Kapadia Associates
• Mr Anand Mahindra , Chairman and Managing Director of the Mahindra Group
• Dr Martin Roth , the Director of the V&A Museum in London
• Dr Aroon Tikekar , the former President of the Asiatic Society in Mumbai, a prolific author, journalist and authority on Mumbai