Hidden in plain sight
Seventy of the city’s buildings and urban spaces designed by local architects are celebrated in Raymond Fung’s new book ‘Untold Stories: Hong Kong Architecture’
Think of Hong Kong’s most renowned buildings and chances are something designed by a famous overseas architect comes to mind.
IFC? Cesar Pelli. Bank of China Tower? I.M. Pei. HSBC Building? Norman Foster.
Raymond Fung Wing-kee wants to change that. His book, Untold Stories: Hong Kong
Architecture, sheds light on 70 buildings and urban spaces designed by local architects. It has been a long time coming.
“I had the idea in 1977 or ’78 when I came back from the States,” he says. “I was so surprised not to see any books mentioning Hong Kong architects. But I was just a small potato then – I had just finished my schooling [at Louisiana State University]. I was too junior to write about anyone.”
That is not the case any more. If you’ve heard of Fung, it is probably because of his career as an acclaimed ink artist. But Fung is also an award-winning architect who spent most of his career working for the Hong Kong government’s Architectural Services Department (ArchSD), an often overlooked but crucially important branch of the civil service responsible for designing parks, schools, libraries, sports centres and other public amenities.
“Architecture is for all people, not just the rich,” says Fung, who retired from the ArchSD in 2007. “And I always wanted to show that Hong Kong architecture can do something extraordinary.”
He channelled that belief into the book, the original Chinese version of which was published in 2002. The new English edition, published by UK press Unicorn, is translated, revised and expanded.
Though it covers some wellknown landmarks, notably the Hong Kong Palace Museum designed by Rocco Design Architects, its focus is on projects that many Hongkongers may have noticed in passing but probably do not know much about.
Among these are the 2022 extension of the Oi! art space on Oil Street in North Point, by a team of ArchSD architects led by Peter Lau; the 2012 revamp of the public spaces around Star Street led by Oval Partnership co-founder Christopher Law; and the 2008 conversion of a public factory block in Shek Kip Mei into the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, by Meta4 Design Forum.
“The interesting thing about this book is that it’s a voice for the marginalised architects,” says William Lim, founder of CL3 Architects, whose H Queen’s art tower is featured in the book.
“Being an architect is not an easy profession,” Lim adds. “It’s not easy anywhere else in the world but in a place like Hong Kong, where land value is so high and everything has a commercial value put on top of it, how do you do meaningful and special projects in this city? That’s the importance of this book.”
Weighing a hefty 2kg and lushly illustrated with photographs, the book consists mostly of short essays based on Fung’s interviews with the various featured architects. Several of his own projects are included, including the Victoria Peak Garden, and in those sections, he amusingly and self-effacingly appears to interview himself.
“I tried not to have any portraits of the architects themselves – I just wanted to show the buildings,” he says.
But the interviews dive deep into the passions and personality of each designer. Every section is a mini-profile of the architect responsible for a particular project. This isn’t a dry architectural tome; it’s a lively encounter with the people who have shaped the city.
“It goes far beyond what an architecture book would normally describe,” Lim says. “It’s quite an intimate kind of reporting.”
The first project Fung highlights sets the tone for the book. Tin Hau’s Tuve Hotel opened in 2015, named after and inspired by a lake in Sweden. Designed by Lam Wai-ming, founder of local firm Design Systems, it is cool and minimalist, in contrast to the tightly packed neighbourhood around it.
Fung describes it as “hazy with mystery and poetry”, a description rarely accorded hotels in Hong Kong. He says he included the project in his book – and gave it top billing – precisely because there is nothing else like it here.
Fung admits he has a contrarian impulse: to counter hectic and relentlessly commercial Hong Kong, he seeks designs that balance that intense energy. In his section on the Blue House, the century-old Wan Chai tenement block carefully renovated with the goal of maintaining the community that had long lived there, he praises the way the project captures “emotion and memory”.
Writing about Index Architecture’s design for the Christian Zheng Sheng College on a remote part of Lantau, he cites the poet Bei Dao: “Between the journey and the path of return, the path of return will always be longer.”
It is a reflection both of the college’s tumultuous experience in finding a new home – thwarted at many turns by people opposed to its mission of rehabilitating teenage drug addicts – and Index Architecture founder Anderson Lee’s personal experience as a New York-based architect who decided to return home to Hong Kong.
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The names in here are not meant to be stars. They represent passion RAYMOND FUNG, ARCHITECT, INK ARTIST AND AUTHOR
I tried not to have any portraits of the architects themselves – I wanted to show the buildings RAYMOND FUNG
The personable approach is indicative of Fung’s amiable nature: he is known within the artistic and architectural community as a friendly, passionate practitioner.
The selection of projects, meanwhile, reflects his own bias as an architect. While a number of commercial projects are included in the book, the emphasis is on buildings that serve the public interest – and which improve the city around them.
“Raymond always said that urban design is just as important as architecture,” says Thomas Wan Chuck-kwan, a recently retired ArchSD architect who worked on Fung’s team for eight years.
Wan recalls how, when Fung was leading the ArchSD renovation of the Sai Kung Waterfront Park, which opened in 2003, he went out of his way to make sure all of the park’s facilities formed a cohesive whole.
“This was at a time, in the early 2000s, when architects just tended to stick within their site boundaries,” Wan says.
Fung insisted on taking a more holistic approach. “That requires a lot of communication skills because you have to negotiate with many different parties,” Wan says. “Raymond is very good at that.”
The approach clearly rubbed off. Several of the projects Wan led for the ArchSD are featured in Fung’s book, including the renovation of Morse Park in Wong Tai Sin, the Hoi Ha Visitor Centre in Sai Kung West Country Park and the Stanley Municipal Services Building.
“I think public architecture in Hong Kong serves a dual purpose,” Wan says. “The first to satisfy the functions. The second is to create an oasis for the public, a form of sanctuary in a very high-density city.”
Like Lim, Wan and Fung also say Hong Kong isn’t an easy city in which to practise architecture. While government architects do not face the same commercial pressures as their counterparts working for private clients, they deal with tight budgets and the same building code that many describe as too prescriptive.
“Hong Kong is a very straitjacket kind of place,” Lim says, referring to the building code. “[Other places] are a lot more accommodating of innovative architecture.”
“There are so many restrictions and some of them are quite unexpected,” Wan says, recalling how he was required to fireproof the steel stairs of the Ping Shan Tin Shui Wai Leisure and Cultural Building, even though they were on the outside of the building. “But out of great challenges come great opportunities. The key is to see the idea hidden, like a sculptor who sees a statue within a block of marble.”
More Hong Kong architects may be finding the art hidden within unassuming scenarios, with Fung saying he has noticed a generational shift in Hong Kong architecture.
When he was young, architects who strove to work for the public good were few and far between; most were content to earn a stable living.
“Now a lot of young architects have a strong vision about their practice,” he says. “And even the general public cares about better architecture. You can see the public outcry for better living.”
That gives him hope for the future of Hong Kong’s built environment. And whatever happens, there is now a record of the architects who strove to make this city a better place.
“The names in here are not meant to be stars,” Fung says. “They represent passion.”