| In 1972, when the World Heritage Convention
was first adopted by the international community, it was
anticipated that a maximum of 100 sites would quality for
international safeguarding. However, nearly 40 years later
close to 1,000 cultural and natural properties around the
world have been put on the World Heritage List and the number
is growing annually.
This rapid increase in the number of places designated
for protection by the international community has coincided
with a change in perception globally about what qualifies
as significant places of humankind’s common heritage, important
to safeguard for future generations. In addition to monuments
and archaeological sites, there is a growing awareness of
the cultural value of notable buildings, vernacular structures,
cultural landscapes, and historic public spaces.
In line with this paradigm shift, the Hong Kong public
has recently begun to embrace its own unique cultural heritage,
and has expressed disappointment over the destruction of
a number of heritage structures as well as a concern for
the protection of what still remains of historic Hong Kong.
Over the past 10 years, through the Architectural Conservation
Programme staff and students at the University of Hong Kong
have been contributing both locally and internationally,
including work to assess world heritage sites by Professor
David Lung, the former Chairman of the Hong Kong Antiquities
Advisory Board who now holds the UNESCO Chair of Cultural
Heritage Resources Management in the Faculty of Architecture
at HKU.
Now, under the guidance of Professor Lung, HKU has formed
a multi-disciplinary research team to develop a globally-applicable
methodology for undertaking cultural heritage
impact assessments on structures and spaces
of historic significance.
HKU Visiting Research Professor, Richard A. Engelhardt,
a former UNESCO official and leading world expert in the
field of heritage conservation, is leading the research
team. He believes many more places of historic significance
in Hong Kong will be recognised as having heritage value
as a result of this ground-breaking work.
The Hong Kong SAR Government has responded to the growing
public awareness of the importance of local heritage with
a range of proposals for the preservation and adaptive re-use
of government properties which no longer serve their original
functions. While plans for the renovation and future use
of the former Central Market, now known as the “Central
Oasis,” are still to be confirmed, the Urban Renewal Authority
is working with HKU and experts in the fields of history,
architecture and urban planning, to examine options of how
to recycle this and other historically-significance public
buildings in Hong Kong.
The driving force behind the effort to safeguard the former
Central Market is the Central Oasis Community Advisory Committee,
chaired by Professor Lung. The Advisory Committee has put
into place a four-step public-participation process to ensure
that the heritage values of the former Central Market remain
part of the collective memory of Hong Kong, even while the
old building serves new public uses.
This is an innovative procedure, involving the community,
professional experts, and government. Previously, there
have been only limited guidelines to assist government in
making decisions about what historic buildings should be
preserved, and how the preserved buildings can best be recycled
for new public or private-sector uses.
Research on culture heritage impact assessment
methodology is ongoing and promises to have far reaching
effects way beyond Hong Kong’s Central Oasis, in the conservation
of the character of urban centres globally, as Professor
Lung and Professor Engelhardt explain in this short video.
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