As part of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, David Adjaye will be on hand to present an architectural model of the new Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) project in New Delhi.

The model will be staged inside the Arsenale as part of the Curator’s Special Projects Mnemonic section, which runs from May 20th until the close of the Biennale. 

Once it is completed in 2026, the museum building is expected to become India’s largest cultural center. Offering space for the museum’s collection of over 10,000 modern and contemporary works, the project is being undertaken in collaboration with S. Ghosh & Associates and will consolidate its currently disparate locations in New Delhi and Noida into a 100,000-square-meter (one-million-square-foot) new home on a plot adjacent to the Indira Gandhi International Airport. 

The museum’s founder and namesake explains: “Our presentation at the Biennale Architettura 2023 communicates the rich creativity of India. The Venice display spans subcontinental history and brings to the fore how the newly built space of KNMA will be a place for cultural discovery and diverse conversations. At the heart of KNMA is the notion of giving back to society, preserving treasures of the cultural past and nurturing a young generation of creative practitioners and thinkers, while bridging the gap between art and the public.”

Groundbreaking for the museum will coincide with the exhibition’s opening. The model is accompanied by artwork from Tyeb Mehta, Zarina, and Nasreen Mohamedi, as well as a special film from Amit Dutta that reflects upon Mohamedi’s writings. The overall arch of the exhibition is meant as a statement about museums, memory, and the pain caused by the 1947 Partition that led to the deaths of upwards of two million people in the years that followed.

“[The] KNMA provides an opportunity to embolden the rise of contemporary Indian art, releasing a new cultural offering for both the people of India, as well as for the wider global arts landscape,” Adjaye added finally. “Its location in Delhi — one of the oldest cities in the world with a lineage of habitation that stretches to the 6th century BCE — gives new context to its position as a dynamic, living cultural force. As such, its specific location within the city directly influences the new building's form, rhythm, and landscape.”

Events kick off on Saturday, May 20th. More coverage of this year’s Venice Biennale can be found here.