Editor’s Note: In Hong Kong, where land is measured in square feet and futures are habitually justified in economic terms, culture has often been treated as an accessory—desirable, perhaps, but dispensable when space or profitability is at stake. Yet the city’s theatres, museums, and civic cultural spaces have never been merely ornamental. They are products of planning decisions, political compromises, and spatial negotiations that quietly reveal how Hong Kong understands value, governance, and public life.
In this conversation, Melody Yiu reflects on her longer engagement with the uneasy relationship between cultural planning and urban development. Trained as an architect and urban designer before entering academia, Yiu brings a practitioner’s eye to archival fragments, policy debates, and built form, tracing how culture-led development—from the late colonial period to the West Kowloon Cultural District—has been shaped by deeply ingrained assumptions about land scarcity and economic return.
What emerges is less a story of individual projects than a portrait of a planning culture. Along the way, Yiu illuminates the late colonial government’s surprising degree of local autonomy, the silences embedded in bureaucratic archives, and the ways cultural buildings are appropriated into everyday urban life. The interview invites readers to consider culture not as an afterthought of development, but as an infrastructure—social, spatial, and political—that continues to shape how Hong Kong imagines itself and its future.
The Chinese translate was reviewed by Melody Yiu
What originally motivated you to investigate the relationship between cultural planning and urban development in Hong Kong? Was there a particular moment, project, or policy debate that prompted you to frame the question as “No Room for Culture”?
I was in architecture and urban design practice for over ten years before entering academia, and I have always been an engaged audience in cultural performances. In the conversation with friends from both the urban planning and cultural sectors, I realise there is very little dialogue between practitioners from these two disciplines, although the issue of urban and cultural development is deeply intertwined. When I began pursuing a research career, I sought to bring the two together and map out the connections between them, exploring how they mutually influence each other.
The announcement of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) plan in 1998 marked a defining moment for “culture-led” urban development, initially a welcome thought in the cultural sector, until the first proposal was released in 2006. The heated debates that followed underscored the importance of culture not to be an afterthought in urban planning, at the same time, the cultural sector began to actively voice its concerns regarding urban development issues.
This article, “No Room for Culture? A Brief Review of Cultural and Urban Planning in Hong Kong,” addresses these forces with an account of the development trajectory of key cultural projects in Hong Kong since the late colonial days. It reveals how arts and culture discussions have always hinged on the preconception of land scarcity in Hong Kong，and to this day, real estate and economic value remain the major arguments used in supporting cultural development initiatives.
In tracing cultural planning from the late colonial period to the present, how did you approach balancing archival research, policy analysis, and spatial readings of urban projects? Were there any findings that surprised you or challenged your initial assumptions?
As an architect/urban designer, it was very natural for me to start by reading space (through maps and drawings) in answering urban development questions. However, with the researcher’s mind, seeing the design intention was not enough. We need to ask the “why” question, where answers are to be found in historical/social contexts and policy.
The journey of digging through archives was an exciting discovery process. Because the Architectural Services Department archive does not retain design-stage material, and since these public cultural buildings were not well-documented like the “star-architect” projects, discussions on design conception are often buried in the pile of government meeting minutes and correspondence. Therefore, for me as an architect-researcher, there were some serendipitous moments in archival reading to encounter a piece of early drawing, which could then be analysed from a spatial design perspective.
One of the findings in this process is how the late colonial government demonstrated a level of autonomy from UK sovereignty, making decisions from the standpoint of local benefit and culture, rather than being subject to London’s directives. Of course, it is arguable whether the term “local” refers to expat elites, major business players, or working-class citizens, and this is further discussed in my book, Cultural Architecture and Late Colonial Space, which examines the intermediary position of the late-colonial government between the London decision makers and average Hong Kong residents.
Your article highlights a persistent instrumentalisation of culture in Hong Kong’s planning practice. What do you see as the most critical misconception policymakers hold about culture, and how does your research seek to intervene in or reframe this discourse?
It goes back to the preconception of land scarcity, so deeply embedded in our minds, which prioritizes the “practica;” needs such as housing or infrastructure. Furthermore, it is related to the institutional structure, where most cultural policymakers come from a trade or tourism background, and they inevitably focus on cultural consumption and its economic benefits. Meanwhile, advocates for cultural development strive for more resources for the sector, often without seeing the broader picture of overall development.
In this sense, I hope my research can bridge the difference between stakeholders for a better mutual understanding, and for the cultural/urban development discourse to also care for the “intrinsic value of culture”. It is an argument advocated by cultural scholar John Holden in the early 2000s, who suggested that beyond institutional and economic values, culture has an embedded value intrinsic to itself, in the process of making and viewing. This intrinsic experience of the creator and audience are difficult to quantify and therefore often sidelined, although in recent years the humanistic concern is gaining monument within the framework of the emerging concept of “cultural infrastructure”.
Who do you most hope will engage with this research (academics, planners, policymakers, cultural practitioners, or the wider public)? And what kind of impact do you realistically expect this work to have on future cultural or urban planning discussions in Hong Kong?
As the motivation for my research is to bridge disciplinary silos by providing a connected view of urban and cultural planning, I hope to engage with practitioners from different backgrounds and facilitate a dialogue that can inform urban development policy and cultural planning considerations. I cannot say with certainty how realistic or immediate this work can impact policy discussions, but as a scholar/researcher, I believe it is our role to build a knowledge base that supports further conversation.
To an extent, I also hope the general public would find interest in the intricate history of urban and cultural planning in Hong Kong, as any sort of advocacy requires public support, and ultimately, the progress in cultural development would benefit society as a whole, where a broad public audience base is the foundation for healthy cultural development in the city.
Your broader scholarly interests include cultural architecture and everyday cultural spaces. How does this article connect with your ongoing research on cultural architecture, and why do you see cultural architecture as a critical site for understanding cultural value, governance, and social life in Hong Kong?
While this article addresses urban planning issues, it is based on ongoing research into how cultural architecture—particularly public buildings—plays a crucial role in shaping everyday public space. From an architectural point of view, cultural buildings might be a specialized typology serving particular users, but my research shows that the general public—whether they are cultural audiences or not – often uses (or appropriates) these spaces in everyday life. Artistic creation adds a layer of cultural meaning that speaks to collective identity or contemporary social concerns, and cultural buildings would be the critical site, a platform, to enable diverse forms of expression and public engagement.
Looking ahead, how do you envision developing this focus on cultural planning and urban governance into a longer‑term academic project? Are there comparative, longitudinal, or interdisciplinary directions you hope to pursue to deepen this line of inquiry?
My current work focuses on the topic of cultural infrastructure, which is a step forward from looking at a particular project to establishing a framework that links different typologies of cultural spaces as a functioning network—from the flagship project like WKCD to the municipal cultural/civic centres, as well as private/civic-initiated arts spaces. I’m also actively looking at comparative studies from a planning and spatial design perspective of how high-density cities in Asia are addressing this contested or collaborative relationship between cultural and urban development.