Set beside Meixi Lake in Changsha, the Changsha Meixihu International Culture and Arts Centre is a 115,000-square-meter cultural complex by Zaha Hadid Architects, defined by three sculptural white forms that read as flower petals from above. At its center is the Contemporary Art Museum, MICA, the final component completed in the project’s eight-year development and opened to the public on 30 November. As the primary visual arts institution within the complex and a major cultural venue for Hunan Province, MICA provides 10,000 square meters of exhibition space across eight galleries and was inaugurated with an exhibition by MOTSE, a Shenzhen-based collective of artists, scientists, and musicians exploring contemporary culture through interactive media.

The museum’s key spatial moment is a large central atrium, illuminated by a sweeping boomerang-shaped skylight that brings daylight deep into the interior while orienting visitors through the building. Designed as a civic and curatorial hub, this space supports installations and public programming while linking directly to workshops, a lecture theatre, café, and museum shop. Its architecture balances formal clarity with fluid geometry, establishing a strong identity within the wider arts campus and reinforcing the museum’s role as both an exhibition platform and a public forum for contemporary creative exchange.