This is the second in a new series of articles that highlight creative spaces and businesses across Hong Kong. We have independently selected and visited each location to bring you our recommendations.
As 2025 draws to a close, nostalgia lingers in the air as we bid farewell to beloved places such as the Sunbeam Theatre in North Point, Metropol Restaurant and Taipan Bakery. More than familiar landmarks, these places are repositories of countless stories and rich legacies that echo across generations.
Although we cannot bring them back, exhibitions devoted to old Hong Kong allow us to revisit the past through replicas, artefacts and archival treasures. This December, we’re shining a spotlight on five exhibitions housed in private museums and historic buildings, each thoughtfully curated to capture the essence of our cultural heritage and its enduring influence on the city.
Installation view of Hong Kong Radiance, a collection by John Wu – Photo courtesy John Wu
Hong Kong Radiance
22 Wo Ha Che, Sha Tin
Inside the storied Lung Wah Hotel — once an inn that hosted Bruce Lee and wuxia novelist Louis Cha — you can enjoy not only its signature roasted pigeon but also a privately curated space called Hong Kong Radiance, founded by avid collector and graphic designer John Wu.
Arranged like a film set, the 2,000-square-foot space showcases a fraction of Wu’s vast collection. It recreates a residential unit, a si6 do1 (士多 traditional convenience store), a herbal tea stall and even a colonial-era government office. All of it displays memorabilia, objects, and furniture that capture Hong Kong’s vibrant visual culture and heritage dating back to the 1950s.
“To me, there is one theme: good design,” says Wu of his collection. “It’s not about how old the object is or how valuable. My first priority is that I can learn something from this paper or invoice or book. A good design, that’s the most important criterion to acquire something.”
To truly understand the design, you have to experience the objects. Unlike conventional exhibitions viewed from behind glass, Hong Kong Radiance invites visitors to rummage through drawers, flip through albums and interact with relics of old Hong Kong. Many appliances, such as vintage refrigerators and televisions, can still be plugged in and used. A gourd-shaped herbal tea pot pours real herbal tea. Mahjong tiles and telephones can be handled freely. Visitors can also examine up close a stylish Art Deco wooden cabinet with an 80-year history, offering a glimpse into the aesthetic tastes of Hong Kong’s past.
Visits to Hong Kong Radiance can be booked via WhatsApp at +852 8417 6545.
Movie Still of “Twilight of the warriors” by Cheang Pou-soi
Kowloon Walled City: A Cinematic Journey
Yamen, Kowloon Walled City Park, Kowloon City
Before its demolition in 1994, the Kowloon Walled City was the densest in the world, infamously known as the “City of Darkness.” Thirty years later, the blockbuster Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In has once again shone a spotlight on this legendary enclave. Set in the dim and dangerous precincts of the old Kowloon Walled City, the film won numerous awards, including Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Its success continued by inspiring the city’s largest-ever movie set exhibition, Kowloon Walled City: A Cinematic Journey, which opened this May free of charge for the public.
“The community was the main story of the Walled City,” says writer-producer-director Cheang Pou-soi. “Other films always focus on drugs, crime and gangsters, but that wasn’t all there was. There was a community no one talks about. I tried to bring that out in this film, and perhaps then we can rethink the character of the city.”
Created by the same team behind the movie, the exhibition features eight rooms that meticulously recreate everyday life in the Walled City during the 1980s. Inside, grocery stores feature shelves stacked to the ceiling with everyday goods, evoking the childhood memories of many, while bone-setting clinics showcase folk medicine practices long common in Hong Kong, particularly in the Walled City. Further in, unlicensed dental clinics served low-income residents, and the labyrinthine rooftops, where residents hung washing and socialised, reveal the intricate networks that defined life in the Walled City.
Staying true to the history of this infamous enclave, the exhibition also recreates narrow alleys and hidden streets, reflecting the chaos and disorder of the place in the 1980s. At the same time, it highlights the enduring Hong Kong spirit: no matter how difficult the circumstances, people strived to survive and persevere against all odds.
Kowloon Walled City: A Cinematic Journey opens Monday to Sunday, from 9:00 to 18:00, until 24 May 2028.
Exhibition installation at the Heritage of Mei Ho House – Photo by Sofia Lisi for Zolima CityMag
Mei Ho House
Block 41, Shek Kip Mei Estate, 70 Berwick Street, Sham Shui Po
The birth of today’s public housing in Hong Kong began with a devastating Christmas fire in Shek Kip Mei in 1953, which left more than 53,000 people homeless. The resettlement housing built for Shek Kip Mei, later known as the Mark Blocks, consisted of seven-storey buildings with 120-square-foot flats along outdoor corridors, featuring shared kitchens and washrooms.
Today, only Mei Ho House remains, now home to a museum, café and youth hostel. At the entrance of the Heritage of Mei Ho House, the mural “Overview of the Heritage of Mei Ho House” introduces visitors to the exhibition themes. The exhibition spans ten thematic zones, showcasing daily life in post-war resettlement estates through artefacts, oral histories, videos, photographs and interactive features. First-floor interpretive units display living conditions of the 1950s and post-1970s. Artefacts donated by former residents highlight the cramped, spartan lifestyle of the 1950s, while the post-1970s units show improved living standards, modern appliances and redesigned flats reflecting hygiene and comfort.
“From the perspective of conservation, not only are the appearance and characteristics of the building preserved, but also the deeds and collective memories of generations, creating a platform to foster understanding of older generations among the young and to celebrate Hong Kong’s proud ‘Lion Rock Spirit’ of self-improvement and solidarity,” reads the exhibition introduction on the Mei Ho House website.
The Heritage of Mei Ho House is open from Tuesday to Sunday, including public holidays, from 10:00 to 18:00.
Installation view of unit S508, PMQ – Photo by Sofia Lisi for Zolima CityMag
PMQ
35 Aberdeen Street, Central
For many, PMQ is a destination for weekend shopping and cultural events. Yet beyond its creative brands and innovative programming, the complex also houses exhibition spaces that reveal the rich history of this Grade III historic building.
Before its transformation into a creative hub in 2014, the site had two remarkable past lives. The first was the pioneering Central School, opened on Gough Street in 1862. It was Hong Kong’s first government school to offer Western-style education and the forerunner of today’s Queen’s College in Tin Hau. Although the campus was severely damaged during World War II and later demolished, the remains of its foundations are now preserved in PMQ’s Underground Interpretation Area, where six pieces of original flooring and fragments of building materials are on display.
In 1951, the site was redeveloped as Hong Kong’s first Police Married Quarters for junior Chinese officers. The quarters were vacated in 2000 and eventually revitalised into today’s PMQ, with many original architectural details preserved, including the layout of the former living units in the two blocks, along with the granite steps and rubble retaining wall from the Central School era.
Two former living units on the fifth floor have been transformed into exhibition spaces. Unit S508 features a documentary in which former police families recount their memories. It also includes reconstructed living and bedroom areas typical of an old Hong Kong home, complete with nostalgic objects such as a typewriter, an old fan and a radio. Next door, Unit S509 presents a detailed timeline of Central School, supported by historical photographs and documents.
PMQ’s executive director, William To, explains the purpose of the exhibitions: “With a site like this, if an ordinary person walks in and we don’t guide them, they will only see the current state, which is meaningless. We hope people come in and understand our three lifetimes.”
Exhibition units at PMQ opens Monday to Sunday, from 10:00 to 18:00
Installation view of “Xi Xi’s Room Boxes: Beginning with Teddy Bears” – Photo by Fung Wai-sun
Xi Xi’s Room Boxes: Beginning with Teddy Bears
The Xi Xi Space, 7/F, Foo Tak Building, Wan Chai
Three years after the passing of Xi Xi (西西 Sai1 Sai1 – literally “west west”), an influential writer in Hong Kong and Chinese literature, her friends and admirers created the city’s first-ever memorial and promotional space dedicated to her works: The Xi Xi Space.
Located in Wan Chai’s Foo Tak Building, the inaugural event, Xi Xi’s Room Boxes: Beginning with Teddy Bears, invites visitors to contextualise the writer’s literary works within her biographical landscape by reconstructing her creative and living environment. The exhibition features two core themes. First, a permanent section, Home Living Room, recreates Xi Xi’s living room in To Kwa Wan, restoring the furniture arrangement and layout that reflected her everyday life. Notable items include a camphorwood chest that formed part of her mother’s dowry, a wooden cabinet she affectionately called the “Italian medicine cabinet,” and a bronze replica of Edgar Degas’ 1880 sculpture “The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer” — all reflecting her taste and her love of travel.
Another occasional theme is “Handmade Bears,” focusing on Xi Xi’s celebrated hobby of making teddy bears. Her interest began in 1989 after she was diagnosed with breast cancer; the aftermath of surgery affected her right hand, prompting her to teach herself to write with her left. Then, in 2000, as a way to retrain her right hand, she began making teddy bears, later publishing The Teddy Bear Chronicles in 2009. The exhibition showcases selected bears dressed in traditional Chinese costumes, transforming them into mythological characters and well-known historical and literary figures from Chinese antiquity.
Whether you are a fan of Xi Xi or have never read her work, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on the inner world of this Hong Kong writer, whose creativity both influenced and was shaped by the city’s transformations.
Xi Xi’s Room Boxes: Beginning with Teddy Bears is free of charge and will run until 31 January 2026. Online pre-registration is required and operates on a first-come, first-served basis.