Exhibition Centre () is an MTR station on the . It serves the

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) is one of the two major convention and exhibition venues in Hong Kong, along with AsiaWorld–Expo. It is located in Wan Chai North, Hong Kong Island. Built along the Victoria Harbou ...

and other parts of

Wan Chai North Wan Chai is situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area nort ...

, on

Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island is an Islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong, island in the southern part of Hong Kong. Known colloquially and on road signs simply as Hong Kong, the island has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. The station was built as part of the

Shatin to Central Link The Sha Tin to Central Link (abbreviated SCL; ) is an extension of the MTR rapid transit network. It is divided into two sections. The first section, named "Tuen Ma line (Phase 1)”, runs from Tai Wai station in the New Territories to Hung ...

project. It topped out on 12 November 2020 and began service on 15 May 2022. This station and the East Rail portion of Admiralty are the first KCRC-owned stations that serve Hong Kong Island. It is the first East Rail line station on Hong Kong Island for trains coming from Hung Hom.

Description

The station serves the

, the

Wan Chai Sports Ground Wan Chai Sports Ground () is a stadium in Wan Chai North, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, with a seating capacity of 2,401. It is a government-run sports ground primarily used by local schools for sports days and other athletic activities. Situate ...

and various nearby office towers in Wan Chai North. It will become an interchange station between the (the extension of ) and the

East Rail line The East Rail line () is one of ten lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. It used to be one of the three lines of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) network. It was known as the KCR British Section () from 1910 to 1996, ...

, offering

cross-platform interchange A cross-platform interchange is a type of interchange between different lines at a metro (or other railway) station. The term originates with the London Underground; such layouts exist in other networks but are not commonly so named. In the Uni ...

between the two lines. Initially, only the

platforms are open, as the North Island line is still being planned. The station was designed by

Farrells Farrells is an architecture and urban design firm founded by British architect-planner Terry Farrell with offices in London, Manchester, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The firm has won numerous awards for their characteristic mixed-use schemes, tr ...

. In January 2015, the MTR Corporation awarded a contract to Leighton in a joint venture with China State Construction to construct the station and western approach tunnel. The station had been built on the site of the former Harbour Road Sports Centre, Wan Chai Swimming Pool, and Wan Chai Ferry Pier Bus Terminus, which were all demolished and reprovisioned elsewhere before construction began. The swimming pool and sports centre were rebuilt on the car park site immediately to the south. The Wan Chai Ferry Pier Bus Terminus, originally located where the station was to be built, was relocated to newly reclaimed land near the new Wan Chai Ferry Pier, and the station groundbreaking took place on the former bus terminus site on 20 April 2015. The transport interchange has since been rebuilt on top of Exhibition Centre station as the latter was nearing completion. There were plans to expand the

over the MTR station. The enabling works for this topside development were included during the station construction. Plans for topside convention facilities above the station had since been discontinued in the 2020

Policy Address Policy Address () is the annual address by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (Governor prior to the handover). The practice of giving annual policy address is mandated under Article 64 of the Basic Law, requiring the government to "present regul ...

, citing technical difficulties involved, uncertainties concerning the construction period and cost-effectiveness as the reasons.

Station layout

Entrances/exits

* A1: Harbour Centre * A2: Transport Interchange * A3: Harbour Road Sports Centre * B1: Great Eagle Centre * B2:

Golden Bauhinia Square The Golden Bauhinia Square () is an open area in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. The square was named after the giant statue of a golden ''Bauhinia blakeana'' at the centre of the area, situated outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where ...

* B3:

Connections

Located above the station is the Exhibition Centre Station Public Transport Interchange, which serves as the terminal point of around 20

bus routes A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

to different parts of Hong Kong. The interchange replaced the former Wan Chai Ferry Pier Bus Terminus, which had to be temporarily relocated to a nearby site during the station's construction. The Wan Chai Ferry Pier, which provides

Star Ferry The Star Ferry is a passenger ferry service operator and tourist attraction in Hong Kong. Its principal routes carry passengers across Victoria Harbour, between Hong Kong Island, and Kowloon. The service is operated by the Star Ferry Com ...

service to

Tsim Sha Tsui Tsim Sha Tsui, often abbreviated as TST, is an list of areas of Hong Kong, urban area in southern Kowloon, Hong Kong. The area is administratively part of the Yau Tsim Mong District. Tsim Sha Tsui East is a piece of land reclaimed from the Hu ...

, is located around 150m to the north of the station.

History

Exhibition Centre station was first proposed in the 1994 ''Railway Development Strategy'' issued by the Hong Kong Government's Transport Branch as an interchange between the proposed

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

and

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

lines. In ''Railway Development Strategy 2000'', Exhibition became an interchange between North Island line and

Renaming

This station was tentatively called Exhibition station, but in late 2017 was renamed to Exhibition Centre station. Its Chinese name remained the same.

Discovery of WWII bombs

On 27 and 31 January 2018, two American-made AN-M65 bombs, believed to have been dropped during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and weighing about each, were discovered by workers at the construction site. Construction was suspended for bomb disposal work. Nearly 5000 people in the surrounding area were evacuated; no injuries were reported. Each operation took nearly 24 hours for preparation and disposal. One of the bombs was stripped of explosive material and put on display inside the station. HK MTR Exhibition Center Bomb Casing

References

* This article draws some information from the corresponding article in Chinese Wikipedia.

External link

{{North Island Line navbox East Rail line MTR stations on Hong Kong Island Railway stations opened in 2022 Sha Tin to Central Link Tseung Kwan O line