How Hong Kong's abandoned buildings get a new lease of life as cultural centres
It tin can sometimes feel as if Hong Kong history is at gamble of slipping away, in this fast-paced urban center where heritage buildings are razed to make room for skyscrapers and where traditional stage performers struggle to compete with popular civilisation.
But in the by year, several major venues have opened to bring new life to Hong Kong'south British-Chinese by. Abandoned old buildings are being reopened as cultural centres. Even the city'southward fanciest new operation hall has been dedicated to the preservation of an aboriginal art form.
Compages aficionados tin can pay homage to Bing Thom at the Xiqu Centre, a Cantonese opera house that opened in Jan. It is the last great work past Thom, the Chinese-Canadian architect who died in 2022 before seeing the completion of his "homecoming" project in the city of his nascency.
Its exterior is crafted from waves of curled aluminium pieces, shimmering like thousands of silver fish scales. The eight-storey building is shaped like phase defunction parting before the opening of a show. Natural low-cal floods into the atrium through these "parts," making the opera business firm feel like a truthful public space. On a recent afternoon, a street artist set up an easel and children played in the opera house's replica ancient Chinese wooden building.
An exhibition (through Jun 30) by Hong Kong photographer Ducky Tse documents the eight-yr process of building the centre.
The history, culture and practices of Chinese opera are well explained in English-language tours, led by guides who go along their charges in line by banging on mini gongs.
Full classical productions are staged at the formal Grand Theatre, while the more than causal Tea Firm Theatre offers shorter performances and dim sum snacks.
While you're there
The Xiqu Centre is part of the massive and still incomplete W Kowloon Cultural Commune. A short taxi ride away is the M+ Pavilion, an art space meant to complement the larger 1000+ museum, which is scheduled to open in 2020. Right outside is a waterfront promenade with sweeping views of Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Isle.
Tai Kwun, meaning Big Station, was a 19th-century British-era police station, courtroom and prison house. Information technology reopened in 2022 equally the Centre for Heritage and Arts, equally part of the city'southward most ambitious restoration project. Historic buildings, fix effectually vast courtyards, are now home to exhibition spaces, studios, shops and restaurants.
A 45-minute, English-linguistic communication heritage tour is available, but not strictly necessary. Tai Kwun is incomparably tourist-friendly; in its first one-half-year, it recorded one million visitors.
Though lavishly outfitted and promoted as a major tourist draw, Tai Kwun also functions as a serious fine art space. It has not been immune to debates most free expression in Hong Kong'south tense political climate. In November, Tai Kwun cancelled an appearance by Chinese dissident writer Ma Jian, but then quickly changed course afterwards coming under criticism, allowing Ma the chance to speak in the terminate.
JC Gimmicky, a nonprofit fine art space, offers two hard-hitting shows this spring: The R-rated Performing Social club: The Violence of Gender (until Apr 28) and Contagious Cities: Far Away, Likewise Close (until Apr 21), which documents affliction in Hong Kong, from the 19th-century plague to modern-age epidemics like SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
While you're at that place
Also while you're there
From Tai Kwun, take a five-minute walk down Hollywood Route, through the eye of the cocked SoHo district. This will take yous to PMQ, a former colonial-era Police Married Quarters. PMQ now comprises a whole city cake housing small enterprises, from vegetarian bakeries to fashion ateliers.
The neighbourhood of Tsuen Wan is at the end of the tracks, at the last station of i of Hong Kong'southward chief MTR (subway) lines. An former cotton wool mill there, once an integral role of Hong Kong's textile industry and postwar evolution, has been transformed into a Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile, or CHAT.
Its inaugural special exhibition, Unfolding: Material of Our Life, opened this month with works and performances past 17 artists and collectives using textiles "as a testimony of faded facts in modern history."
While you're there
New restaurants worth trying include the farm-to-table Bee b. Subcontract, the locally run Koko Java Roasters and Honbo, a play on the Cantonese word for hamburger.
By Joyce Lau © 2022 The New York Times
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/hong-kong-xiqu-centre-tai-kwun-centre-for-heritage-arts-textile-239231
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