Abstract
This paper provides a deeper understanding of Hong Kong’s built heritage conservation policies as they have been developed during the city’s colonial and post-colonial periods, especially the political and social factors that have prompted and influenced their development and evolution. Initial observations and thoughts are derived from the authors’ extensive conservation involvement with UNESCO and local and overseas governments as well as their experience with some of Hong Kong’s key statutory boards and government committees that deal with built heritage conservation. Through their first-hand experience, coupled with extensive research, the authors argue that conservation policies in Hong Kong have not been created with a local vision, but instead have been catalysed by external factors, in particular, those relating to economics and politics. The paper concludes with a recommendation that Hong Kong should focus on social considerations in reshaping future conservation policy, as articulated in UNESCO’s Historic Urban Landscape approach.
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(Image source: Lee Ho Yin).
(Images source: Lee Ho Yin).
(Image source: Lee Ho Yin).
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Notes
The only updating to the Ordinance is a change of colonial terminologies to post-colonial ones in 1997 (updating terms, such as “Colony” to “Special Administrative Region” and “Crown Land” to “Government Land”), when Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony and became a Special Administrative Region of China.
The territory of Hong Kong comprises three key areas: Hong Kong Island (ceded to Britain in 1841), Kowloon Peninsula (ceded in 1860) and the New Territories (leased from the Qing Government for 99 years from 1898), the last of which makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong’s territory. The expiry of the leased New Territories in 1997 was the issue that led to the joint agreement between the governments of China and Britain to return Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
The HK$ 1 billion funding was meant for the first batch of buildings at the launch of the Revitalisation Scheme in 2008. By 2015, the scheme had expanded to four batches of buildings, receiving cumulative funding of HK$ 5.5 billion. On 24 November 2016, the Development Bureau of the HKSAR Government announced the fifth batch of buildings for the Revitalisation Scheme (see: https://www.devb.gov.hk/en/publications_and_press_releases/press/index_id_9318.html).
One of the authors of this paper, Lee, is among the collective recipients of this award.
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Lee, H.Y., Cummer, K. & DiStefano, L.D. From crisis to conservation: a critical review of the intertwined economic and political factors driving built heritage conservation policy in Hong Kong and a possible way forward. J Hous and the Built Environ 33, 539–553 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-018-9611-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-018-9611-8