Tale of two cities: architects and artists team up to highlight grim side of Hong Kong life

At one of Europe’s most prestigious cultural institutions in Venice,a Hong Kong team of emerging architects and artists will unveil a side of their city not normally shown to the world.

Thirteen rising stars of architecture, plus four artists, are exhibiting at the Venice Biennale and if guests at the opening bash on May 27are expecting glitz and glamour from Asia’s world city, they’re in for a surprise.

Hong Kong’s exhibition, titled Stratagems in Architecture, highlights several social issues, including a community’s fight against the forced removal from their traditional homes, and the crowded abodes of low-income earners on the waiting list for public housing.

If this all sounds a bit grim for what is typically rather a gay occasion, curator Stanley Siu Kwok-kin points out that they are entirely in keeping with the vision of chief curator Alejandro Aravena. The Chilean architect, this year’s Pritzker Prize winner, wants to focus attention on architecture that helps improve people’s quality of life, titling the central display of the biennale’s 15th International Architecture Exhibition “Reporting from the Front”.

Siu, co-founder of architectural firm Daydreamers Design, was appointed Hong Kong’s curator on the basis of his proposal to link exhibitors using the 36 Strategems, an ancient set of Chinese military directives. Participants were asked to choose a strategem and build their exhibit around that.