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A Cultural
Vision for Hong Kong and an organic
cultural blueprint for West Kowloon
The People’s Panel on West Kowloon
(PPWK) will launch our draft proposal
to Redefine West Kowloon tomorrow.
We advocate a living, organic process
in the design and implementation
of the West Kowloon Cultural District
(WKCD) project, starting with a
cultural vision for Hong Kong.
The government’s Invitation for
Proposal to develop West Kowloon
is flawed as it contains only specifications
for hardware and lacks vision and
software to develop Hong Kong into
a world cultural metropolis and
an urban planning strategy that
goes with such a vision.
Redefining West Kowloon starts
with the building of a Cultural
Vision through research,
risk assessment, software studies,
public participation and consultation,
with hardware design as the final
stage, and an Urban Planning
Vision that includes a
city branding strategy and construction
of landmarks with cultural content.
Hong Kong is Asia’s world city.
How could Hong Kong link with and
lead world culture, and concurrently
develop and innovate local culture,
is a key question that should be
addressed in this process.
A cultural metropolis think
tank
Vision building should be a tripartite
effort, involving the public, private
and civil society sectors. PPWK
suggests the establishment of a
tripartite Cultural Metropolis Think
Tank (CMTT) to formulate
such a vision for Hong Kong.
CMTT, as a “multiple-discipline
and cross-policy” cultural think
tank, should be led by the Chief
Secretary’s Office, and with representatives
from private and civil society sectors,
as well as five government bureaus
as its members (Home Affairs, Housing,
Planning & Lands, Commerce,
Industry & Technology, Education
& Manpower, and Economic Development
and Labour).
CMTT is not set up only for the
development of West Kowloon, but
for Hong Kong’s sustainable cultural
development. The WKCD, however,
will be an important cultural cluster
in Hong Kong and CMTT should be
tasked to come up with a strategy
and vision for West Kowloon.
The West Kowloon Vision
WKCD should have an organic blueprint
that will evolve and change with
the times. These are some of the
development strategies proposed
by PPWK:
- The Cultural and Metropolitan
Think Tank should be its “brain”
and be based in WKCD to achieve
a clustering effect.
- WKCD in itself is already an
eye-catching icon. If a landmark
is to be proposed, 5% of the construction
budget should be the upper limit
for the building of such a landmark.
- WKCD planning should be an integral
part of and echo Hong Kong’s harbour
front development.
A West Kowloon Authority
PPWK suggests that a West Kowloon
Authority, responsible for supervision
and management of WKCD, be set up
as a provisional body initially
and gradually evolving into a statutory
body. It differs from the Airport
Authority and similar quangos as
a tripartite effort, with representatives
from the government, business, cultural,
professional and civil society as
its members.
Timeline for Redefining
West Kowloon
It is not PPWK’s intention to
delay the development of West Kowloon.
If our proposal receives wide support,
the CMTT can start in the latter
half of 2005, and the povisional
West Kowloon Authority can be formed
as early as 2006 to coordinate planning
and tendering work. In our timetable,
we envisage a nine-month process
for the CMTT to develop the plan
for the first phase of the West
Kowloon development. But this does
not mean a delay in the WKCD timetable,
as we are simply replacing the year-long
negotiation between the government
and the developer - conducted in
a black box - with an open and transparent
process involving tripartite collaboration.
Our proposal will take about the
same time as the schedule fixed
by the government, but deliver a
genuine cultural development project.
Please challenge Redefining
West Kowloon
Redefining West Kowloon is a process
espouses a bottom-up approach and
a coordinated civil society effort.
Your input and challenges are needed
for us to fine tune the details
turn out a new draft.
PPWK will take Redefining West
Kowloon to government, developers,
Legco members, political parties,
professional bodies, cultural and
creative industries practitioners
and civil society organizations
in the next few weeks. We hope our
proposal will re-energize discussions
on the future of West Kowloon, and,
more importantly, on a much needed
cultural vision for Hong Kong.
The People’s Panel on West
Kowloon
18 February 2005
To view the detailed proposal,
please Click
here
The People’s Panel on West Kowloon,
set up on 11 November 2004, has
nine organizations from civil society
and cultural sectors as its core
members. PPWK calls for re-examination
of the Invitation For Proposal of
the West Kowloon Project and believes
that united we gain a more solid
ground for achieving civil society
and developing cultural think tank
for Hong Kong. Danny Yung is the
convenor of PPWK, and Ada Wong and
Leung Mantao are its spokespersons.
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