New Delhi: The award-winning architects behind the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza will design India’s first startup museum in Bengaluru, the country’s leading tech and IT hub.
Set to open in 2028, the Museum of Innovation and Startup Technology is a public-private partnership project between the Karnataka state’s Department of Electronics, Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science and Technology and UnboxingBLR Foundation, a Bengaluru-based non-profit co-founded by venture capitalist Prashanth Prakash and journalist Malini Goyal.
A $35 million project set in a 105-acre urban forest, MIST will be housed in one of the original switchgear factory sheds of the former New Government Electrical Factory industrial complex in Bengaluru’s Baiyappanahalli area.
The Heneghan Peng Architects, an architectural practice based in Dublin, will develop the museum together with India’s Cadence Architects and DROO Da Costa Mahindroo Architects and “transform the historic industrial site through adaptive reuse,” the Irish firm said on Tuesday, as it released its design vision.
“The project reimagines heritage as a platform for future innovation, bringing together culture, technology, entrepreneurship and public life within a single dynamic ecosystem.”
The Heneghan Peng Architects is known for its designs of major civic and cultural projects, among which are the Versailles Prize-winning Grand Egyptian Museum, one of the world’s largest archaeological museums, which opened last year in Giza, as well as the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, West Bank, which won the prestigious 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. In 2026, the practice was named among TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies.
Priyank Kharge, Karnataka’s home minister who also oversees IT and biotechnology, has welcomed the announcement of the Heneghan Peng Architects’ role, saying that the museum will “tell the story of India’s innovation, startup and technology ecosystem, celebrating the ideas, people and institutions that shaped it.”
It was a “matter of great pride,” he wrote on X, “that the consortium led by Heneghan Peng Architects, the team behind the iconic Grand Egyptian Museum, has been selected to bring this vision to life.”
