THE WORLD'S LARGEST CULTURAL PROJECT: WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT

THE WORLD'S LARGEST CULTURAL PROJECT: WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT

Waterfronts are the new cultural centers, so why? After our Dundee Waterfront and Galataport reviews, now the West Kowloon Cultural District's turn which has been registered as the world's largest cultural project. Each of the buildings in the project is signed by different architectural firms. For example, the architectural design of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, scheduled to open in July 2022, belongs to Rocco Design, the design of the M+ Museum belongs to Herzog & de Meuron, FARRELLS and Arup Hong Kong collaboration, and the design of the Xiqu Center belongs to Bing Thom Architects. It contains details that come to the fore not only with the designs of the buildings but also as a "global vision". We watched the directors' interview at South China Morning Post. We suggest you take a careful look at the following statements we have chosen from within:
Cover photograph: westkowloon.hk

Suhanya Raffel (M+ Museum Director): "Culture is a transformative project in any case. The most important part is to be able to bring the stories that are embedded in this community here in our region to the world through our voice."

Dr Louis Ng (Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum): "The Palace Museum collections are mainly made up of the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. These kinds of items now in the Palace Museum, they have 1.8 million items but they can only display regularly less than 1 per cent. 800 pieces of the collection will make it into Hong Kong Palace Museum. We are not only going to display them but we want to find new ways to interpret to present them to our audiences."

 

Paul Tam (Executive Director Performing Arts West Kowloon Cultural District Authority): "Arts don't stay stagnant. Art is supposed to change according to the times, otherwise you become irrelevant. As 21st century performing artists we need to bring ourselves to you. We want to actually help you to understand us. We cannot hold ourselves on a pedestal and think that you're going to come to us. And so I think, this is the chalenge of the 21st century performing arts folks like ourselves."

Look at the common denominator in the discourse of the three directors. They are after transferring themselves to the world and discovering new ways for it. Instead of using the "world famous architectural design" emphasis, they strive to stand out with their "visions".

 Not only that...

For example, M+ Museum from the very beginning, it is underlined that it comes to Tate Modern and MoMA as a competitor, M+ Museum has a young curatorial and operational team from 30 different nations, a successful female director. The Hong Kong Palace Museum, on the other hand, will be some of the works that will be exhibited in cooperation with the Beijing Palace Museum, and some will consist of objects that the public has never seen. So what are the primary objectives of making the waterfront area a cultural center and accelerating these cycles? Why did we start seeing coastal projects quite often? 

Economic development, international trade, branding in tourism, marina research, impression of the city and sustainability in every sense. We can see that Waterfront projects are open to development in different areas. We have stated in our previous research that museums and arta-cultural institutions have developed the region where opera buildings and theater buildings are located and have accelerated the gentrification works. The West Kowloon Cultural District project is on its way to becoming the world's largest waterfront art space. Of course, since we are in the field of museology, the main thing that made us think was that museum buildings were so close to the shore and the museum policies envisaged in preventive protection and sustainability of the collection. We hope that access resources have been provided on this issue recently. However designing a museum is not just about designing or architectural. An important step that should be based on the infrastructure work of a museologist and curatorial team. Because when you design a museum without knowing the collection, you sabotage the museum in question. You can apply the museum's needs, operational processes, collection or even design only with the right steps when you work in partnership with a museologist. It is for us a matter of curiosity with which museologists are working on the West Kowloon Cultural District project. We are not talking about a museum directors, we are talking about "museologists". We would like to underline this part in particular.

M+ Museum plan for those who are curious, especially for museologists:

Source: Arquitectura Viva