Designed in 1923 by Palmer and Turner Architect, Pedder Building is one of the last colonial era buildings in the heart of Hong Kong’s Central district. Surrounded by modern skyscrapers, this narrow eight-storey house is characterised by neoclassical elements – arches, columns, sculpted medallions, classical balustrades and steel windows.

Although the Pedder building has been classified with a Grade II historical status by the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments office, this does not mean that the future of the building is secured. Rather Grade II listing only requires the owners to “preserve the building selectively”. In practice means this that: “demolition works or building works such as alteration/ renovation works which may affect the heritage value of the building are not encouraged”.

While the British Government passes strict preservation laws at home, in Hong Kong the colonial officials often sided with property owners and developers. In the city’s feverish property market where land is at the premium, many of the privately owned historical buildings in Hong Kong are intentionally allowed to degrade into a state of despair.

The Pedder building has mainly been a commercial building for shops, clinics and offices and for seventeen years with Shanghai Tang’s flagship store occupying two of its floors. In 2011 things changed dramatically when Shanghai Tang lost the bid for its space to Abercrombie & Fitch, which reportedly agreed to pay over HK$7 million ($900 000) – two and half times the previous monthly rent. Shanghai Tang was forced to move out. Soon other small businesses followed.

Now some of the world’s most established art dealers have their gallery spaces in the Pedder building. Gagosian, Pearl Lam and Simon Lee have their Hong Kong branches there, and the last one to move in was Lehmann Maupin, who took up a space redesigned by Rem Koolhaas in March. During Art Basel Hong Kong last week the international art crowds invaded the building when the Pedder-based galleries hosted their opening all on the same evening.

Because architecture serves as a visual evidence of a city’s putative identity, with the demolished buildings also cultural memories are erased. Thus the preservation of the city’s old colonial architecture – or its destruction – needs to be read against Hong Kong’s search to find its own historical and cultural specificity and subjectivity. Pedder building’s new life as a home of Hong Kong’s top art galleries can be read as an embodiment of a wilful re-invention. When in the past it was mostly known for cut-label fashion shops selling factory rejects, today it has become a symbol of a creative, dynamic and global Hong Kong – aiming towards excellence and high culture.

post and photo by Riina Yrjölä

Art Basel Hong Kong was a perfect time to launch the  M+ Museum’s new programme with a scuplture park of giant inflatables at the West Kowloon Cultural District. This programme will activate the urban area around the M+ museum, due to open in 2017 on a newly developed area of 40 hectares on the waterfront facing Hong Kong Island, with a master plan designed by Foster and Partners.

Six large inflatable works by Cao Fei, Choi Jeong Hwa, Jeremy Deller, JIAKUN ARCHITECTS, Paul McCarthy and Tam Wai Ping and a large  performance piece by Tomás Saraceno now give a glimpse into  what the future might look like when large scale public art is combined with world class architecture. It will certainly become an exciting public space for Hong Kong and a beacon for international visitors.

Works like Cao Fei’s  House of Treasures — an oversize inflatable suckling pig highlighting themes of prosperity and abundance, and Choi’s giant, breathing lotus blossoms are perfect examples of how public art can mutate the landscape and capture the public’s imagination.  Sacrilege is a life-size bouncy castle in the shape of Stonehenge by Jeremy Deller, where a prehistoric monument becomes an interactive public sculpture.

Architects Tomas Saraceno and Liu Jiakun have created sculptural installations that mirror the built environment. Saraceno’s piece is an inflatable biosphere that resembles giant soap bubbles and only activated when weather allows. Jiakun’s red spheres float under black netting creating a quiet structure for the public to contemplate.

Another sculpture – Complex Pile by Paul McCarthy is a 51-foot-high, 110-foot-long, inflatable sculpture of a twisted pile of excrement. This work mocks its picturesque surroundings and pokes fun at the typical tame qualities of public sculpture. Certainly this work and the others stimulated debate about  public art and its role in helping to define a cityscape.

M+ also took the opportunity at Art Basel Hong Kong to announce the shortlist of design teams for the museum – due for completion in 2017.

The teams are:

Herzog & de Meuron + TFP Farrells

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA

Shigeru Ban Architects + Thomas Chow Architects

Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects + Benoy Limited

Renzo Piano Building Workshop

SNOHETTA

From Julia Champtaloup

Photos by Riina Yrjölä

Architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa has been a member of the Pritzker Prize Jury since 2009. The past 5 months Pallasmaa has been teaching at the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Arizona, while staying at Wright’s former home, the legendary Taliesin West studio.

Pallasmaa offers his view on the merits of this year’s Prizker Prize laureate Toyo Ito:

 “During the past three decades, Toyo Ito has been one of the architects on the global scene, whose successive works have redefined and expanded the realm of architecture in terms of structural and technical innovation as well as formal and aesthetic imagery.

He combines advanced technologies and new materials to a formal language that seeks a dialogue and harmony with the natural world. His works are highly professional in their conception, articulation and execution, but humane, inviting and playful in their character.Ito’s architecture arises from the timeless Japanese aesthetic traditions, but it achieves a universal appeal and validity, that has had a worldwide influence, especially among young designers and students.

The fact that Toyo Ito is the third Japanese architect in a rather short time to receive the revered Pritzker Architecture Prize after Tadao Ando and the SANAA Architects, is a convincing proof of the continued strength of Japanese design and aesthetic culture, which has successfully fused into Western sensibilities and new technologies.”

Silver Hut, Omishima Island, photo: Iwan Baan