The Hong Kong That Wasn’t
Hong Kong's grown up since the handover, but it could have changed more. Winnie Yeung and Natasha Stokes look at the wild plans that never came to be.
Sky Dwelling Glass Museum
What: World-renowned architect Frank Gehry’s elevated glass museum at the Tamar Site. It would have been Gehry’s first project in Asia.
Why: Gehry is of course the deconstructionist genius who brought the world Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. He was invited by Swire to come up with the design of a museum of modern art at the Tamar Site as part of the property giant’s proposal for development of the West Kowloon Cultural District.
Specifics: Reminiscent of Gehry’s famous deconstructionist works, the design was of a glass structure supported by a steel skeleton that elevated it 90 meters off the ground. Gehry also looked for inspiration from Chinese classical landscape paintings and architecture, and in the end spent nine months on a design that maximized the harbor view for visitors. Featuring a cluster of five 1,000-1,500 square meter “mini museums” for exhibition and theater space, the 50,000-square-meter museum would also have featured a “sky gallery” shaped like a staircase, which would create a contrast with the skyscrapers in the area. The design was in response to the relatively hideous public museums in Hong Kong.
Cost: Never released to the public.
What Happened? In yet another sad chapter of urban planning in Hong Kong, Swire’s proposal was rejected by the government as it did not include the design of a canopy – one thing that the developer refused to comply with. Swire also proposed to scatter the cultural venues along two sides of the harbor instead of putting everything at that one spot in West Kowloon. The design was nice, people loved it – but the government rejected it because it didn’t follow the rules. Everyone knows the rest of the story – the government plan was scrapped, the consultation of the “passed” proposals ended and the government is now in the process of coming up with a new plan – very probably without a canopy.
World's Tallest Tower
What: Nina Tower, a 518-meter-high, 108-storey building on Yeung Uk Road in Tsuen Wan, slated to have been the tallest building in the world.