The building design was decided by an architectural competition announced on 7 January 2002. The organisers received 1557 entries from 82 countries, making it the second largest architectural competition in history. In the second stage of the competition, 20 entries submitted additional information on their designs. Judging was complete by 2 June 2003. The competition was won by architects Róisín Heneghan & Shi-Fu Peng, and their company Heneghan.peng.architects (Ireland) winning 250,000 dollars. Second place was awarded to Coop Himmelblau. Héctor Vigliecca and Luciene Quel (Brazil), Ruben Verdi (Italy), Michael Zimmermann, Engel und Zimmermann (Germany), Fernando Pardo Calvo y Bernardo Garcia Tapia, Nuno Filipe Morais Monteiro (Portugal) and Martin Roubik (Czech Republic) received Honorable Mention. The building is designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, Buro Happold and Arup. The exhibition masterplan, exhibition design and museology is by Atelier Brückner.