Hong Kong Opens Its Doors For the Very First Time

Two years ago, some of Hong Kong’s most passionate architects, designers and urban scholars gathered on stage at M+ for a talk. Each had been the recipient of a Design Trust grant that allowed them to investigate topics like Brutalist architecture, modern heritage and playground design. And the discussed continued well after the official event ended.

“After the talk we had a drink,” says architect Bob Pang, who has studied Brutalism in Hong Kong. M+ design and architecture curator Shirley Surya stopped by and mentioned that it would be great if they organised something outside of the museum. “She mentioned Open House and it clicked. We thought it’s time to have one.”

The first Open House was organised in London in 1992. Its deceptively homey name belies just how significant it has become. Every year, 60 cities around the world throw open the doors to architecturally and socially significant spaces, inviting the public to explore and learn about them. Many are buildings that normally aren’t open to the public. 

Now it’s Hong Kong’s turn. It took a year of work and support from Open House Worldwide — an umbrella organisation that represents all of the different Open House festivals — to put together the city’s very first Open House, which includes 95 free public tours of 50 different buildings and urban spaces. 

It seems like the event was overdue. “The tickets were fully registered within 10 minutes of their launch,” says Pang. “It was really quite remarkable.” 

About 2,000 slots were available, with the goal of making the tours as accessible as possible while also keeping each group small enough to provide an intimate experience. “All the tours have an expert docent,” explains Pang. “It might be the architect who designed the building or the venue owner, who can tell the story behind the spaces. They can have dialogue with the people joining the tour. People can open their minds not just by listening to the experts but also the reverse. Dialogue is something we are really looking for.”

Some of the featured sites will be familiar to Zolima CityMag readers. Architects from Zaha Hadid’s local office will join representatives from Henderson Land to show visitors around The Henderson. Beau Architects founders Charlotte Lafont-Hugo and Gilles Vanderstocken will lead a tour of the gallery they designed for Kiang Malingue. Blue House residents will show visitors around the famously revamped tenement in Wan Chai. Conservation architects Purcell will show visitors around Tai Kwun. Architectural historian Charles Lai will lead tours of Jardine House and the Hong Kong Arts Centre designed by avant-garde local architect Tao Ho.

“I am actually currently working on a comprehensive research project [on Tao Ho],” says Lai. “The Arts Centre and [generally] speaking the work of Tao Ho has long been an overlooked and under-researched subject. Hopefully the tour will allow me to share with the participants the details of the Arts Centre’s design, and I will share some of the findings from the research project too.”

Lai is one of the 10 members of Open House Hong Kong’s organising committee, which also includes Bob Pang, urban researcher Sampson Wong, photographer Hiuman Lam, and architect, conservationist and Zolima CityMag contributor Kevin Mak. “Many of us had been doing these kinds of programmes or tours or visits individually so we had our own connections and our own networks with these sites,” says Lai. “We had quite a long list that we narrowed down to 50.” 

These include places that aren’t normally accessible to the public – or which the public might simply overlook. There’s an urban farm on the roof of the 36-storey Hysan Place shopping mall in Causeway Bay, the Crown Wine Cellars in a former 1930s munitions depot, two public housing estates in Tsuen Wan, the 1960s-era Chinese Methodist Church in North Point and the seaside campus of St. Stephen’s College in Stanley, which dates back to 1903. 

Pang says he’s particularly excited to showcase two new spaces designed by young Hong Kong architects: the House of Joy and Mercy, a serene animal shelter designed by LAAB Architects, and St. Paul’s Catholic Day Nursery, an eye-catching vertically-stacked school building in Tai Po designed by local firm Eureka. “It’s rare to have a chance to design new architecture from scratch to finish in Hong Kong,” says Pang.  

Even spaces that are normally open to visitors will benefit from offering the more architectural perspective of Open House, says Moonzen Brewery co-founder Laszlo Raphael. Although the brewery is open for public tours and tastings every Friday and Saturday, Raphael plans to focus not just on locally-brewed beer but on the nature of the space itself.

“We currently inhabit a former textile manufacturing building that has been repurposed into a brewery, embodying the essence of industrial evolution and de-evolution,” he says. “What [the] future holds for this area, one certainty remains – the industrial hub of Kwun Tong undergoes a profound transformation, of gentrification and the conversion of cramped office spaces into what locals call ‘coffin offices.’” He hopes Open House will foster appreciation of Hong Kong’s industrial legacy and the industries that are still active today. 

Although the inaugural edition of Open House Hong Kong is fully booked, the organisers hope to expand it next year. And there’s nothing stopping the public from doing their own tour of the city. Among the Open House sites are the Jamia Mosque and Kowloon Mosque, which may seem intimidating to non-Muslim visitors, but their spokesperson Hameed Jalal reminds us that the public is welcome. “Mosques have always been open to visitors in Hong Kong for all,” he says. With a curious attitude and open mind, some doors are always open.

Open House Hong Kong takes place on the weekends of September 21–22 and September 28–29, 2024. Click here for more information.