Hong Kong's architectural heritage conservation is praised
Mainland officials want to copy city's success in conserving architecture and culture against urbanisation and threat to historic buildings
Hong Kong's way of preserving its old buildings, while not always well-received at home, has become something of the model that the mainland aims to follow in efforts to protect its rich but threatened heritage.
The city's experience with heritage preservation and revitalisation can serve as a useful lesson for the mainland, as preservationists do their job more methodically when working under better legal conditions for protecting heritage, according to mainland officials.
It's sad to see a historic place turned into a hub of rowdy bars and souvenir shops, but it's good that the government now realises they made a mistake
Speaking yesterday at a Tianjin symposium on the reuse of architectural heritage, Li Xiaojie, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), said the mainland's push for urbanisation threatened the conservation of architectural heritage, and he called for it to be better protected under law.
President Xi Jinping, during a visit on Monday to a village in Ezhou, Hubei, where a trial programme involving rural-urban integration is being carried out, told officials to avoid the mass demolition of homes and instead conserve old villages.
Li said he has gained considerable insight from visiting architectural heritage sites in places such as Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and he specifically pointed out Lui Seng Chun - a grade-one historic building in Mong Kok, Kowloon, that has been turned into a Chinese medicine and health care centre.
"It shows that old buildings should be for all of the public to enjoy, not for the benefit of a select few," he said.