HONG KONG: Past & Present

H O N G KO N G

Past & Present

Government House

The residence has been home away from home for twenty-five colonial governors and two war time Japanese Generals. Seen here prior to the Handover, Government House with the Union Flag snapping in the breeze represented for 142 years the seat of power in Hong Kong

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Past & Present

The Bank’s third incarnation was awarded to the local

entirely different. When it was unveiled on 18 November 1985,

architectural firm Palmer & Turner, with instructions to build

just a year after the signing of the Sino-British agreement, the

‘the best bank in the world’. Since the site had been extended

new building was a reassuring statement from this venerable

by the acquisition in 1933 of the adjacent old City Hall, work

institution of its continued faith in the future of Hong Kong.

commenced immediately. To ensure uninterrupted supply of

With his star on the ascendant in the international arena, British

materials, as the building was designed to make expansive

architect Sir Norman Foster proposed a radical departure from

use of stone and marble, the Bank purchased an entire quarry

the sternly imposing style of preceding buildings; the new

and invested in a brickworks. Construction took two years to

headquarters, instead of looking like a fortress, he postulated,

complete, it stood 220 feet high, towered above the city and

should show a transparently open, public face. It should be seen

instantly attracted world attention at its opening on 17 October

as a conveniently accessible and user-friendly resource that

1934. By the 1970s The Bank had outgrown its headquarters

inspires affection rather than reverential awe. The building’s

and departments were strewn far and wide in offices throughout

distinctive externalised superstructure singles it out from the

Hong Kong, a state of affairs that could not continue. In 1978 it

competition in this architectural beauty contest as viewed from

was decided to replace the art deco head office with something

across Statue Square. ■

‘The best bank in the world’ The Bank’s third incarnation opened in October 1934 and by the early 1970s had again outgrown its once ample accommodation

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Past & Present

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Past & Present

The Hong Kong Club In 1897 the Club moved to the waterfront. Barely eighty years later, pro-demolitionists won the day and this magnificent building was torn down in 1981

St John’s Anglican Cathedral

The distinctive tower of St John’s Cathedral, rising against a backdrop of barren Victoria Peak, was officially opened on 11 March 1849

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Past & Present

From Qing to Chanel

Encased in stiff embroidered silks, Chinese women of status submitted mutely to the crippling practice of foot binding

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Past & Present

A Streetcar Named Desire

N

o city in the world is better served by its public transportation system than Hong Kong. Compactness and accessibility being the prime criteria dictating the development of this conurbation, it was inevitable that maximum emphasis would be given to the cheapest, fastest, most proficient means of getting around.

Charmingly antiquated, Hong Kong’s tramways fortunately survived, despite the zeal to rid themselves of

tram systems displayed by metropolitan authorities elsewhere in the world.

Still rendering Trojan service, from before the celebration of the coronation of King George V in May 1910, Hong Kong trams have clattered their way along the north

A railcar florally adorned to celebrate the coronation of King George V, May 1910

shore of Hong Kong Island and have over the years become colourful travelling

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billboards for commercial advertising, promoting airlines, tourist destinations,

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electronic gadgetry and just about everything except the trams themselves, whose popularity as the cheapest available means of transport ensures they never lack passengers.

The construction of a provisional single-track tramline began in 1903, running from Kennedy Town to Causeway Bay. The route was later extended to Shau Kei Wan. The first fleet of 26 tramcars that inaugurated service the following year were built in the UK and shipped in pieces to be assembled in Hong Kong. Today one can rent a tramcar to host a celebration, or for the best leisurely city tour a seat upstairs and up front is recommended. â–

Past & Present

Queen VictoriaÂ

The statue of the Queen Empress was erected in Royal Square in 1896 and retrieved from Japan after World War II. It resides today in Victoria Park named after her

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B

orn 24 May 1819, Queen Victoria is associated with Britain’s great age of industrialisation, economic progress and expansion of empire. From 20 June 1837 she was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and from 1 May 1876 the

first Empress of India, remaining so until her death on 22 January 1901. Her reign as queen lasted 63 years and seven months, the second longest after the current reign of Queen Elizabeth II who has occupied the throne longer than that of any other British monarch to date. The period centred on her reign is known as the Victorian Era. The queen was greatly influenced by her husband Prince Albert whom she married in 1840 and with whom she had nine children. On the death of the Prince Consort on 14 December 1861, Victoria entered a state of mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. On her passing in 1901 it was said that Britain had created a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.

In Hong Kong, a statue of the Queen Empress was erected in Royal Square in 1896 to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee of 1897. During World War II the Japanese shipped all public statues including that of the queen to Tokyo to be smelted down in aid of their war effort. However, it and the lions of the Hongkong Bank were discovered intact after the war and returned to the colony, where the queen was erected as the centrepiece of a park named after her and where it resides today.

During the reign of Queen Victoria she was the target of numerous unsuccessful assassination attempts. In 1996 her effigy in Hong Kong suffered the anger of a local craftsman whose application for an artist’s grant to the United Kingdom had been rejected. In retaliation he doused the statue in red and hung a wooden ladder from her scepter. And in the 1967 communist-inspired disturbances the Queen was the repeated target for anti-British sentiments with slogans of ‘bring down the British’ scrawled across the granite plinth. ■

Past & Present

Former pride of the Cunard fleet, the RMS Queen Elizabeth was sabotaged by arsonists and sank in Hong Kong waters in 1972

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Past & Present

RMS The Queen Elizabeth

The Kowloon Peninsula By the 1930s Kowloon was literally the first impression that new arrivals experienced, with the railway terminus providing spectacular views across to Hong Kong Island

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Past & Present

The Tsing Ma Bridge

The Tsing Ma Bridge seen prior to completion in 1995Â as the final segments were locked into position

C

reated by demolishing and replacing the

bridge drew the admiration of Hong Kong citizens still sceptical

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sparsely populated islet of Chek Lap Kok,

of the enormous construction costs involved. As the June

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off the north coast of Lantau Island, the hugely

1997 countdown approached, China questioned the need for

expensive new airport required an equally

so huge an investment at this late juncture in Britain’s tenure.

costly infrastructure of communications

But eventually, after protracted negotiations, concluded on a

with existing population centres, the chief

trip to Beijing by British Prime Minister John Major in 1991,

components of which came to be collectively

Chinese leaders were sufficiently reassured to give Chek Lap

known as the Lantau Link. At the hub of this

Kok their nod of acceptance so that the airport terminal was

link was the Tsing Ma Bridge, longest suspension road and rail

almost up and running at the time of the 1997 handover. Here

bridge in the world, inaugurated at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on

the Tsing Ma Bridge is viewed prior to completion in 1995

27 April 1997 by former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher.

as the final segments were locked into position and with the

The bridge draws its name from two islands it connects at each end,

sunset providing a dramatic backdrop, it is seen with the island

namely Tsing Yi and Ma Wan. The combined, brilliantly illuminated

of Lantau in the distance. Until its opening, Lantau could be

spectacle of bridges together with the cable-stayed Kap Shui Mun

reached by sea only, and was completely rural. ■

Past & Present

H

ong Kong is Time’s ever-changing chameleon, performing its dexterity with such haste that an absence of a few years can leave one bewildered by the city’s radically altered appearance. Here the intervals between past and present seem to concertina, as though

history has compressed centuries into decades and years into months. Past and Present plays on these extremes to illustrate how much can alter in those sometimes astonishingly brief intervals.