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Hong Kong is not alone in having witnessed the long and painful gestation of a much-vaunted cultural monument. In 1958, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai had a grand vision: a new opera house on the west side of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – which wouldn’t be built until nearly half a century later, when the National Centre for the Performing Arts finally opened. And last month, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie held its first concert seven years late; 10 times over budget the Herzog & de Meuron concert hall had come under the scrutiny of a German parliamentary inquiry for, among other things, its extremely expensive toilet brushes.
Still, local taxpayers and art communities would never have guessed that, nearly two decades after then-chief executive Tung Chee-hwa proposed the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), the 40-hectare site would remain largely unbuilt, be with no estimate of a final cost and mired in fresh controversy.
In 1998, we were promised the cluster of harbourfront visual and performing arts facilities would transform Hong Kong into “Asia’s arts and cultural capital” and that the first batch of theatres would have opened seven years ago. The secret plan for a branch of Beijing’s Palace Museum on the site and the public indignation that followedare just the latest problems for a project that has been plagued by construction delays, botched design plans and a revolving door of senior executives.
A digital rendering of the Lyric Theatre.
Yet, the future of WKCD is more secure now than at any time since Tung stepped down, in 2005. On January 18, just three weeks after Hong Kong learned of the HK$3.5 billion Palace Museum plan (separately funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club), Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying announced in his final policy address that the development rights pertaining to the commercial property portion of the cultural district would be transferred to the WKCD Authority (WKCDA), meaning revenue from a hotel, offices and residential buildings will go towards funding the cultural facilities rather than into government coffers. A total gross floor area of up to 366,620 square metres – slightly more than the 308,940 square metres first proposed, in 2007, and accounting for about 43 per cent of the site – can now be used for commercial development. The rest of the land will be dedicated to arts and cultural/communal facilities (41 per cent) and retail, dining and other nightlife (16 per cent).
The government’s move is not without flaws. Until now, the WKCDA has been tapping into the HK$21.6 billion endowment approved, in 2008, by the Legislative Council, which has continued to monitor how the public funds are being spent and so discourages waste and corruption. Such checks and balances will cease to apply when the authority has its own income stream.
A digital rendering of the Xiqu Centre’s Grand Theatre.
But for Louis Yu Kwok-lit, executive director of performing arts at WKCDA, the funding plan is a “life saver”. In an interview conducted shortly after the policy address, he said this was the “only way” to ensure that “we can have a proper cultural district”.
But what, exactly,isa proper cultural district?
There has been much focus on how the design of WKCD has mutated since the 2002 master plan was laid out by star architect Norman Foster (remember the canopy?) The development of M+, the museum spanning art, design, architecture and the moving image with a 5,300-exhibit collection, is well under way but little is known about the performing arts programmes planned for the district.
A recent visit to the site provided a few clues. As of now (“You just don’t know what is around the corner in West Kowloon,” said an industry observer, after the Hong Kong Palace Museum revelation), timelines have been confirmed for three performing arts venues: the Xiqu Centre, primarily to showcase Chinese opera, will be ready first, some time next year; Freespace, an open-air area with a stage and an indoor black box theatre, will be completed in 2019; and the Lyric Theatre Complex in 2021.
The Xiqu Centre under construction in West Kowloon Cultural District. Picture: Jonathan Wong
The Bing Thom Architects and Ronald Lu & Partners’ shell that is becoming the Xiqu Centre, just off Canton Road, is all the more impressive when you stand in the middle of it. A huge, inverted V-shaped entrance opens into a multi-storey atrium designed to draw in passing foot traffic. On the first floor, a vast space will house a dim sum restaurant, the kitchen of which will also provide the tea and food served in the intimate Tea House Theatre, where abridged versions of Chinese operas will be performed. Unusually, the 1,100-seat main theatre will be located on the top floor.
The building is designed to coax in new audiences, says Yu: “People who are really interested in Chinese opera will be more than happy to go all the way up to see a full production. Others may want to start with a shorter, more intimate experience in the Tea House, which is located closer to the entrance, or they can just pop into the restaurant or the atrium for exhibitions and other activities.
“We really need to get more people interested in Chinese opera and the building will help us do that.”
One of thehighlights of the opening season will be a joint avant-garde opera by young Hong Kong and Shanghai artists.
The view from the Xiqu Centre. Picture: Jonathan Wong
“There is a lot more experimentation in the mainland than here,” says Yu, “and we hope to bring many young performers to Hong Kong to create new audiences.”
Although Chinese opera is one of the most popular art forms in Hong Kong, he explains, “the vast majority of opera fans here are older women”. Young performers are ready to accept the baton from ageing stars but they need an audience among their own generation to support and grow with them, he says. “Cantonese opera is on the Unesco list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and it would be a real shame if it slips into decline.”
The Xiqu Centre will no longer be the lone WKCD institution promoting traditional Chinese culture. With the future Palace Museum located at the other end of the district – assuming its location will not shift as a result of the ongoing public consultation over the controversial attraction – the tone seems to have moved away from “cosmopolitan and international”, as previous administrations have described it, to one that is more in line with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s idea of soft power.
Carrie Lam. Picture: Sam Tsang
Regardless of whether Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, a frontrunner for the post of Hong Kong chief executive, has been pushing the Palace Museum to serve her political ambition or not, Yu says it is a good idea to bookend the district with institutions that have a wealth of material to tap into and a ready audience, given that he foresees problems for some of the WKCD venues that will host Western performance art.
Freespace, which is part of The Park (or Art Park, a waterfront area that will also encompass the already built M+ Pavilion and a large lawn), is still one big construction site, the building of the black box theatre now having begun in earnest. The venue is perfect for large open-air events, such as the annual Clockenflap music and arts festival, but with the Hong Kong Palace Museum – and its loan collection of exquisite Chinese antiquities – now scheduled to open nearby in 2022, might the noise be deemed too jarring?
(SCMP)
