News Museum Coming to Bridges Street Market
Asia’s first news-themed exhibition and education center will be established at the defunct Bridges Street Market location, the Journalism Education Foundation (JEF) announced last week.
The News-Expo museum is set to be a media archive of various print and electronic newspapers, detailing Hong Kong’s modern history. Complete with interactive multimedia and virtual reality technologies, it will show the city’s evolution throughout the years, from the fishing village of its early years to the international financial hub it is today. Using engaging games and hands-on media technology, visitors can also experience how news is reported and its impact on social development.
Plans for the News-Expo came as the Antiquities Advisory Board voted in favor of the JEF’s proposal on the project. Using the current site of the Bridges Street Market in Sheung Wan, the museum’s archives will include English and Chinese publications, with an emphasis on the freedom of the press Hong Kong enjoys. Milestones that are featured in the exhibition include the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, as well as the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong to China.
The Bridges Street Market has been listed as a Grade III historical building since its 2011 assessment by the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office, which defines the grade as a building “of some merit, but not yet qualified for consideration as possible monument.” Built in 1953, the Bauhaus-style structure was to replace old markets that had been destroyed during the Japanese occupation in World War II to meet the demands of the growing population.
According to current plans for the museum, admission will be free. Funding of the building will be collected by holding current affairs seminars for approximately 50,000 students a year at $50 per student each session.
