Conference paper, Saturday, October 20th, 2007, 09:15 a.m.
Oscar Ho Hing-kay – Business, Politic and People: Museum Development in Asia
It gives me great pleasure to be here to learn from my distinguished colleagues, and share with you some of my experiences in working in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. At my talk this morning, I would like to start off with talking about an ambitious museum project that was launched in Hong Kong a month ago, then discuss the content of this new museum, and some of the problems we are facing in implementing this new museum, within the context of developing museums, especially contemporary art museums, in Asia. For I do find some of the problems we are facing are not distinctively Hong Kong, but are commonly faced by many of my Asian colleagues, who are witnessing a rapid growth in museum development within the region.
Around a month ago, the Hong Kong Government has launched a grand scale cultural plan called the ‘West Kowloon Cultural District’ project. It is an unprecedented investment in culture in the history of Hong Kong.
This ‘suddenly cultured’ phenomenon, however, is not unusual in Asia in recent years, Singapore is now moving fast in building its new National Art Gallery as part of its Cultural Capital plan; the Cultural Centre of Philippines has just submitted a proposal to the government to expand the Centre into a grand scale cultural district plus real estate development; in Thailand, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, after being postponed for years, is back on track again. In China, museum is a symbol of civility and modernity. In Beijing, as all kinds of commercial spaces moving first to 798 and now to Song Zhong, the government is equally aggressive. It plans to open 32 new museums by August 2008 (don’t forget, this is October 2007 already); and in Shanghai in 2002, the government officially announced its plan (or political order) to build 100 new museums by 2012, when the World Expo will be held in the City. (A few months ago, I had a meeting with an official in Shanghai, and was told that there are still 60 more museums to go). But believe me, if the government says 100 museums, they will build 100 museums. In Shanghai, they are opening up more museums than Starbucks. (When I was setting up MOCA Shanghai, we were approached by a frustrated official who complained that after one and a half year, we still could not finish setting up a museum).
A lot of this new interest in investing in culture in Asia is lulled by a fantasy over the economic potential of culture, especially at places such as Hong Kong and Singapore, which are working hard to seek new directions for its economy. Nurturing creative industries and cultural tourism, building a sophisticated cultural city to attract cooperate executives and professionals, are all important motivations behind this ‘suddenly cultured’ phenomenon. (Situation in China is a bit more complicated, as there is a political dimension as well as strong commercial interest behind this bloom in cultural investment).
WKCD
In a way, the West Kowloon Cultural District project is one of a series of attempts of the Hong Kong Government trying to seek a new economic direction for Hong Kong since the economic down fall of 1997. After failing to nurture the digital industry and later on the Chinese medicine industry, the government turned to culture. This newly launched project intends to, by 2015, turn a piece of 40 hectare land into a large scale cultural district. Located at the Western side of Kowloon, this piece of reclaimed land is highly valuable as it is the last piece of centrally located land with a fantastic view of the famous Victoria Harbour.
15 performing arts venues of various sizes, a museum of 62,000 square meters and an exhibition centre of 12,500 square meters will be built. The construction fee of these venues plus commercial facilities and a light train transportation system within the district is estimated to be 19 billion Hong Kong dollars (2.4 billion US dollars). The 19 billion dollars would come from the sale of 20% of that piece of land to real estate developer for residential development.
And for the remaining 80% of the land, 36% will go to museum, exhibition centre and performing arts venues, 5% for other cultural and communal facilities, and 39 % will be for building commercial facilities such as hotels, restaurants, shopping areas and office buildings. These commercial facilities will be run by a West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. Income generated from renting out these commercial facilities will go to support the annual operational costs of the various cultural facilities within the District. Based on the calculation of the financial advisors, with that source of income, the District can be self-financed and will not require any regular subsidy from the government.
