The Challenge of Creating Space

By Christopher DeWolf

After a decade of debate, Hong Kong is on the road to getting its long-awaited cultural district. In January, it kicked off construction with the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre, a temporary structure housing five days of Cantonese opera, contemporary art and classic Hong Kong movies. The district’s first permanent venues are slated to open in 2015, including the 1,100-seat Xiqu Centre, with facilities for Chinese opera, and the 19-hectare City Park, which will include the Free House, a small youth-oriented theater and live-music space.

Tasked with setting up these venues is Louis Yu, who most recently headed the Arts Development Council, which funds many of Hong Kong’s arts organizations. Previously, he made his name as chief executive of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, a hub for visual arts, theater, film and music.

Mr. Yu has his work cut out for him. To date, it remains unclear how the West Kowloon Cultural District will actually work, and just how much autonomy its managing authority will be given over matters of cultural programming.

That’s especially true when it comes to the many streets, parks and plazas that will fill the gaps between the district’s 18 cultural venues. In recent years, outdoor events have blossomed, from informal performances in locations such as Sai Yeung Choi Street, in Hong Kong’s Mongkok district, to December’s Clockenflap festival, which drew thousands of music fans to the West Kowloon waterfront. But organizers complain that running these public events means confronting a thick web of bureaucracy.

Mr. Yu spoke to the Journal about his plans for West Kowloon’s opera houses, theaters and concert halls, including what some have called the most important venue of all: public space.

The Wall Street Journal: What does your job entail, exactly?

Mr. Yu: I have 15 venues to develop. The Xiqu Centre is the first one. I am happy that it has been chosen to be the first one, because this center is what makes the WKCD different from other cultural hubs, because it’s about local culture. Other cultural hubs have concert halls, opera houses and theaters, but the Xiqu Centre is something very unique. Even in China, you do not see a lot of theaters devoted only to traditional performances. The Xiqu Centre will be a pioneer — a modern building built for traditional Chinese performances.

Is the kind of cross-disciplinary event you held with the bamboo theater something we can expect from the WKCD program after the district is complete?

When we open the Xiqu Centre in 2015 or 2016, we will leave space next to the theater for building bamboo structures, so that a bamboo-theater festival can be arranged every year at least. That festival can embrace a culture of experimentation and trying new creations and art forms.

There is a lot of potential for this bamboo theater to accommodate other kinds of art, like music. It’s a very good space. The first time I entered into it, I was amazed it had such high ceilings. When you look up at the structure it looks like a bamboo cathedral. The kind of grandeur that it expresses is something quite surprising for an audience that has not been inside it before. Culturally, it has a very open atmosphere — people can come inside and leave when they want, and people standing outside the theater can clearly hear what is happening inside. This is the kind of public culture we want to create within the WKCD. We don’t want to create just monumental buildings. It will be very user-friendly and pedestrian-friendly to attract people to see things inside.

What kind of a role will these more ephemeral and informal events and activities play in the district?

The informal part will be very, very important. I find the public-space programming more challenging and exciting than the indoor-space programming. The whole site occupies 40 hectares, and in Norman Foster’s master plan, 23 hectares will be open space.

People have a lot of expectations of public space in the cultural district. It can’t be just another promenade, another park. You know how bad our public spaces are in Hong Kong. You’re not allowed to do this, you’re not allowed to do that. You can’t do anything but move along with the crowd. There are so many constraints in the city experience. We have expectations that our public space will be vibrant, cultural, free.

What’s interesting is that people are beginning to do a lot of different things in public space now. Lots of protests, Occupy HSBC, you know. In the past several years, Hong Kong people have been experimenting in how to use public space, and the people who manage public space are learning how to deal with it.

How will you create this framework for lively and flexible public space, where you have outdoor performances and experimental happenings?

Right now we are planning the design of the park, and part of the process is encouraging different kinds of events to take place in our temporary site. For example, we had the Clockenflap festival last year. This kind of music festival atmosphere was a new Hong Kong experience. We have a tradition here of ticketed outdoor performances, but not many outdoor festivals where you can walk around freely and check out different groups. We had a meeting with the Clockenflap people after the performance and we plan to do a workshop with them, because they have the experience and they plan to do more of this kind of thing every year.

Apart from Clockenflap, there was also the Jazz Festival and the MaD [Make a Difference] event. More than 2,000 people turned up for a concert that was advertised only through Facebook. Any band that wanted to perform could show up, register and play. The whole thing was a very Web 2.0 experience, no advertising, no idea of who would play but lots of people who showed up and sat on the ground.

By organizing these kinds of temporary events, some of which are paid and some unpaid, some ticketed, some unticketed, we can plan our park. We have to come up with the design of the park within the year, so we will have design workshops with the organizers of outdoor activities, so that they will tell us what kind of space is good, and what kind of space they need.

It sounds like you have a full plate.

We need a bigger team and more help. No other cultural district has the mission of opening one or more venues a year for more than six years.

–Edited from an interview with Christopher DeWolf

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