Norman Foster has been selected to head one of three groups which will aid in the preparations of a master layout plan for Hong Kong’s new cultural district. Known as Lord Foster, he was already previously involved in the scheme, which stopped three years ago due to public outcry over some of his designs for the complex. Foster caused controversy when he proposed a 15-meter-high glass canopy which would cover most of the 40-hectare cultural complex, which is to be built in the western Kowloon area of the city.
The other two teams will be lead by Rem Koolhaas and local architect Rocco Yim. The entire cultural district project is set to cost 21 billion Hong Kong dollars and will start within the next three years.
Masterplan para el Distrito
Cultural de West Kowloon en Hong Kong
Foster designed HSBC Holdings Plc’s Hong Kong headquarters and the city’s airport, and Koolhaas helped design the CCTV Tower in Beijing. Yim is a Hong Kong architect whose designs include Hong Kong station, the Guangdong Museum and the Commune by the Great Wall, a complex of 42 villas near the Great Wall in Beijing.
Hong Kong’s commercial and business-driven cultural legacy has generated a rich creative energy, but never a permanent home for the arts. Won as the result of an international competition, this masterplan for the West Kowloon Cultural District provides Hong Kong with an unprecedented collection of arts, performance, and leisure venues. Built entirely on a section of previously reclaimed land on the West Kowloon waterfront immediately opposite Hong Kong Island, the project will consolidate Hong Kong’s reputation as a cultural destination while providing an iconic architectural image for the city.
The new district is conceived as a pleasure garden, integrating a series of arts, performance and leisure venues within an extensive urban park, set beneath a dramatic, all-enveloping canopy. Part open, part opaque, and with a variety of shading devices, the canopy will create a comfortable environment, protecting visitors from the extremes of the weather, and generating its own microclimate with cooling winds in the heat of the summer. Beneath it, a modern art museum, a major performance venue, and an assortment of theatres and concert halls congregate around the districts western end, while cinemas, restaurants, shops and leisure facilities extend east along the spine and the harbour-side. Each of these areas is accessed by a people-mover system, which is integrated with the city’s existing transport networks, and elevated 7 metres above park level, so that visitors can look out over Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong’s skyline as they travel through the park.
The canopy suggests a rolling landscape, inspired by the natural topography of the Kowloon Peninsula. Beneath it, over 70 per cent of the site is given over to parkland, the informal planting of mature trees creating the impression of a wooded environment lying at the harbours edge. A water amphitheatre forms the focus of the districts western edge, while trees and grassy banks cascade down along the southern waterfront. The permeable roof, natural environmental controls and network of gardens and social spaces, champion the objective to create characterful, enjoyable public spaces and a rich, all-encompassing cultural experience to redefine the very nature of the urban cultural quarter.
