Preserved relics at future To Kwa Wan station 'should tell story'

Heritage advisers and archaeologists have called for a more holistic approach to preserving and reconstructing relics found at the future To Kwa Wan station.

Their call came a day after the Antiquities Advisory Board endorsed the government's preferred plan for dealing with an ancient well found at the top of the station site.

Under that scheme, the well would be dismantled and reassembled later. But the decision came with a condition - the well should be restored at or near the original location.

This option would cost an extra HK$10 million, compared to between HK$800 million and HK$1.3 billion for the other options, and cause no further delay to the opening of the extended railway, scheduled for 2018.

The government has pledged to spend another HK$1 billion to preserve seven of the 249 archaeological features uncovered so far, including two other wells dating to the Song (960-1279) or Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties and some stone buildings. But board member and architect Philip Liao Yi-kang said such a conservation approach did not go far enough.

"The city needs a strategy to reassemble the jigsaw puzzles instead of preserving individual artefacts bit by bit," said Liao, who urged the MTR Corporation during the Thursday board meeting to pursue a station design that showcases the relics.