An exhibition highlighting the long history of Chinese architecture and some of the greatest achievements in Chinese construction was unveiled at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Monday.
Jointly presented by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the HKSAR government, and China State Construction Engineering Corp, the exhibition follows the theme of a great nation, fantastic architecture, and brilliant construction, as part of a series called “The Spirit of the Times Shining Over Hong Kong”. It is designed to inspire, educate, and uplift visitors with scale models, photos, and multimedia presentations of architectural engineering marvels old and new of infinite ingenuity and craftsmanship passed down through generations of hardworking Chinese people.
In the showcase exhibition, residents feel particularly proud of the homegrown landmarks of modern architecture and construction technology, including the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and Hong Kong International Airport. The exhibition also serves visitors well about the similarities and differences between architecture and construction achievements in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong in terms of the spirit of the times they reflect.
Hong Kong needs to realize it is equally important to open its doors wide to the mainland, now more than ever, than to the West traditionally, because the Western bias the city inherited from the colonial era is in the way of integrating its own development into the overall development strategy of the country, including viewpoints, rules, and socioeconomic mechanisms
China boasts the only ancient civilization in the world that has been continuously evolving for at least 5,000 years and counting, of which the architecture and construction achievement exhibition offers a mere glimpse, but from a perspective that never fails to wow people regardless of their age, gender, or ethnicity. Since the reform and opening-up drive began, in the last three decades or so in particular, a wave of Western modern architecture design and construction technology has swept across the mainland as buildings of Chinese traditional style mixed or married with its Western counterpart popped up alongside those designed by famous foreign architects.
Architecture often features some political and cultural connotations, though not so obvious in many times. Hong Kong became a free port in the 19th century and was under British rule for more than one and a half centuries as the largest concession from China to the UK. As a result, most of the buildings constructed in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon in those years were fruits of European design and engineering technology.
As a matter of course, when the Palace Museum in Beijing and the West Kowloon Cultural District authorities agreed in December 2016 to jointly build and operate the Hong Kong Palace Museum in West Kowloon, a wave of related information swept through the city and prompted many people to speculate that the overall cultural development trend in Hong Kong would soon experience a major shift toward Chinese-Western fusion and innovation.
The architectural design of the Hong Kong Palace Museum combines “traditional Chinese visual art culture” and “traditional Chinese spatial culture” with “contemporary Hong Kong cosmopolitan culture”, resulting in the look of an inverted pyramid often found in traditional Chinese visual art designs that aspire to “open up to the sky and gather together on the ground.” The structure and interior design adopt an atrium surrounded by seven floors, each larger than the one below and centered on an unseen vertical axis. Its use of spatial perspectives is apparently influenced by the traditional Chinese spatial layout of the Palace Museum in Beijing, aka the Forbidden City, and the majestic features of its cavernous halls, with a hint of Western avant-garde architecture design language in its visual vocabulary. Controversial or not, the unique structure stands out in West Kowloon as a combination of ancient Chinese design philosophy and Western adventurism in visual presentation.
Back to the question I posed earlier: What, if any, are the similarities and differences between Hong Kong and the mainland in terms of the spirit of the times reflected from architecture styles and construction engineering?
The first similarity that comes to mind is reform and opening-up. The main difference, in my opinion, is that the mainland is opening up to the outside world all-around, while Hong Kong needs to realize it is equally important to open its doors wide to the mainland, now more than ever, than it is to the West traditionally, because the Western bias the city inherited from the colonial era is in the way of integrating its own development into the overall development strategy of the country, including viewpoints, rules, and socioeconomic mechanisms.
Since the US government adjusted its global strategy to concentrate on containing China’s rise as a major power, both the mainland and Hong Kong have encountered mounting attempts by US-led Western powers to disrupt Hong Kong’s stability and development, but China’s all-around opening-up strategy remains in force. The mainland is expected to continue absorbing Western modern design concepts in its own architecture and construction development, with its roots firmly planted in the millennia-old Chinese artistic tradition and design philosophy. Many people in Hong Kong, however, still obsess over the false assumption that the West is superior to China in architectural aesthetics and construction technology; the illusion is equivalent to a pseudo hypothesis that the moon appears more charming in the West than it does in China.
Also worth noting by the HKSAR government and all sectors of Hong Kong society is the capitalist curse called the “law of the jungle”, which has led to consistent budget overruns and repeated delays in the completion of all major construction projects in recent years. Ironically, construction contract of the temporary COVID-19 quarantine hospital at the AsiaWorld-Expo, now officially named the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre, was awarded to a State-owned company from the mainland, which completed the project in just four months, using prefabricated building parts and highly efficient construction technology and a management concept proved effective in the mainland in the early days of the pandemic. Local construction firms can learn a lot from this business model for their own benefit, and for Hong Kong society’s, too.
The author is a senior research fellow of China Everbright Holdings.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.