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Hong Kong's disappearing Shophouses

4778 Views 11 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  hkskyline
This article appeared in the China Daily 5th OCtober.

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2010/10/05/hong-kongs-disappearing-shophouses/
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By JINGPLUS from dcfever :

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That building could be - renovated - a real highlight. In that condition its unfortunately a question of time until it will be demolished :-(
Perfect 10 as history gets new look on Shanghai Street
The Standard Excerpt
Dec 9, 2019


URA

Ten pre-war era tenement buildings built in the 1920s have been reconstructed with their facades preserved.

The grade II historic buildings at the intersection of Shanghai and Argyle Street are now regrouped as 618 Shanghai Street for commercial and cultural purposes under the Urban Renewal Authority's four-year revitalization program.

Construction was completed last month and the buildings opened to the public two weeks ago. Its facades and stone pillars were retained but the original structures were removed because they were too old and fragile.

In his blog yesterday, the authority's executive director, Wai Chi-sing, introduced the project in response to criticism that the revitalization will follow in the footsteps of Macau's Ruins of St Paul - with only their facades preserved but not the body.

"In my opinion, revitalization and conservation is not merely preserving the whole of an old building," he said.

"When we did structural examinations and tests for the buildings, we found the structures were seriously aged," he said, adding that flats were split into subdivided units and illegal structures were found.

The buildings also saw serious water leakage and corrosion, which Wai described as "having reached the end of their lives."

He said during public consultation for the project in 2008, the authority consulted conservation expert Lee Ho-yin from the University of Hong Kong, who said tenement buildings could serve practical purposes in providing space.

More : http://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news.php?id=214296&sid=4
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I wish I could buy one to renovate and save it
Vanishing tong lau: Hong Kong heritage experts call for action, incentives to save last pre-war shophouses
South China Morning Post Excerpt
Sept 4, 2022

Businesswoman Vanessa Ho never set out to be a conservationist, but now she is pleased that she bought an old shophouse and saved a slice of Hong Kong’s history.

The four-storey building at 1 Queen’s Road West in Sheung Wan was built in around 1930, before World War II, and was owned since the 1950s by a family who ran a restaurant selling roasted meat on the ground floor and lived upstairs.

The restaurant’s sign was still up and advertising slogans in fonts popular in the last century were painted on its wall and terrazzo pillars, when Ho, 50, bought it in 2016.

More : Incentives needed to save Hong Kong’s vanishing tong lau
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