Cultural Centers in Hong Kong: Welfare Provision or Economic Instrument?

Abstract

“Cultural center” is a new type of architecture and institution that has emerged since WWII and has become a model for many contemporary cultural institutions. It reflects the physical realization of the European welfare-state cultural policy, especially in Britain and France. With reference to the European cases, this paper examines three major cultural centers in Hong Kong from the 1960s to the present day (City Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Center, and the Xiqu Center at the West Kowloon Cultural District). Employing a socio-spatial approach, the methods include an archival study of government documents and spatial analysis of public space at the selected cultural centers. The paper demonstrates how the positioning of culture has shifted from a public welfare provision into a capital-oriented urban development strategy and, in this context, questions the role of contemporary cultural institutions.

Keywords:

• cultural architecture
• cultural institution
• welfare-state cultural policy
• public space
• Hong Kong
• socio-spatial organization

Acknowledgment

This research is conducted in the capacity of the author’s current PhD pursuit, for which I would like to express gratitude to my supervisors Assistant Prof. Francesco Rossini and Prof. Hendrik Tieben at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for their continuing support and guidance. Appreciation should also be extended Mr. Kwan Pak-lam, Ms. Kong Miu-lan and Ms. Fiona Siu, who have provided important insight for the development of this research. The author would also like to thank the journal’s editorial team, particularly Associate Prof. Martin Søberg, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which are valuable not only to the development of this paper but to my research at large.

Notes

1. Kenny Cupers, Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2013); Mark Swenarton, Tom Avermaete, and Dirk van den Heuvel, eds., Architecture and the Welfare State (London: Routledge, 2015).

2. Lily Kong, “Cultural Icons and Urban Development in Asia: Economic Imperative, National Identity, and Global City Status,” Political Geography 26, no. 4 (2007): 383–404; Wilfried Wang, ed., Culture: City (Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2013).

3. Mike Raco and Katherine Gilliam, “Geographies of Abstraction, Urban Entrepreneurialism, and the Production of New Cultural Spaces: The West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong,” Environment and Planning. A 44, no. 6 (2012): 1425–442.

4. Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson, The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

5. Kim Dovey, Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form (London: Routledge, 1999).

6. Ibid., 71–86.

7. The Arts Council of Great Britain, First Annual Report 1945–6 (1946).

8. Christoph Grafe, People’s Palaces: Architecture, Culture and Democracy in Post-War Western Europe (Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura, 2014).

9. Ibid., 63–76.

10. Margaret Kohn, Radical Space: Building the House of the People (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

11. Arts Council, First Annual Report 1945–6, 7.

12. The Arts Council of Great Britain, Plans for an Arts Centre (London: L. Humphries, 1945).

13. Laurent Fleury, Sociology of Culture and Cultural Practices: The Transformative Power of Institutions [2006], trans. Michael Lavin (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014).

14. Grafe, People’s Palaces, 95–107.

15. Nathan Silver, The Making of Beaubourg : A Building Biography of the Centre Pompidou, Paris (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).

16. Hong Kong Government Information Service, Events in Hong Kong 1967: An Official Report (1968). The report recommended cultural and recreational activities for the youth.

17. Runhe Liu, A History of the Municipal Councils of Hong Kong: 1883–1999: From the Sanitary Board to the Urban Council and the Regional Council (Hong Kong: Leisure and Cultural Service Dept., 2002).

18. “Hong Kong City Hall – Governor’s Opening Speech,” South China Morning Post, March 3, 1962, City Hall Supplement.

19. Chung Wah Nan, Contemporary Architecture in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Joint Pub., 1989).

20. Louis Ho, “From ‘No Cultural Policy’ to ‘Centralised Market Orientation’: The Political Economy of Hong Kong Cultural Policy (1997–2015).” Global Media and China 2, no. 1 (2017): 57–73.

21. Raco and Gilliam, “Geographies of Abstraction”.

22. Kong, “Cultural Icons and Urban Development in Asia”.

23. TAOHO Design Architects Ltd. and Hong Kong Tourist Association, Study of the Feasibility of a New Performance Venue for Hong Kong (1999).

24. West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, “The District – Development Plan,” https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/the-district/development-plan (accessed May 15, 2021)

25. West Kowloon Cultural District Joint Conference, A Paper Submitted to Meeting of Planning, Lands & Works Panel on West Kowloon Cultural District (2005).

26. Kerry McPhedran et al., Bing Thom Works (Hong Kong: Bing Thom Architects, 2015)

27. Dovey, Framing Places, 46.

28. Mr. Kwan Pak-lam (former Deputy Director, Architectural Service Department), in conversation with the author, March 2021.

29. Ms. Kong Miu-lan and Ms. Fiona Siu (former Cultural Presentation Officer, LCSD), in conversation with the author, March 2021.

30. Vicki Ooi, “The Best Cultural Policy Is No Cultural Policy: Cultural Policy in Hong Kong,” The European Journal of Cultural Policy 1, no. 2 (1995): 273–87.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melody Hoi-lam Yiu

Melody Hoi-lam Yiu is an urban designer and researcher in cultural architecture and public space. Trained as an architect and practiced extensively in master planning and urban design, she takes the professional knowledge and insight into further research and investigation on urban and cultural issues. After obtaining an Executive MSc in Cities at the London School of Economics, Melody is currently a PhD candidate and lecturer at the School of Architecture, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.