The Hong Kong Palace Museum is a public museum in the

West Kowloon Cultural District The West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) is a large arts development in Hong Kong. Based on a Foster and Partners master plan and comprising , the district will eventually include 17 venues. The Xiqu Centre for Chinese opera, the Freespace c ...

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 Delta i ...

, exhibiting artefacts from the national Palace Museum at the

Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is a palace complex in Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, at the center of the Imperial City of Beijing. It is surrounded by numerous opulent imperial gardens and temples including the Zhongshan Park, the sacrifi ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. Construction began in April 2019 and the museum officially opened on 3 July 2022, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the

handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transfe ...

of Hong Kong. The decision to build the museum in Hong Kong has generated much controversy and criticism from

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Hong Kong government's failure to conduct a public consultation exercise beforehand. The government subsequently launched a six-week consultation process whereby, instead of collecting views on whether the museum should be constructed, the public was merely invited to provide views on the museum's design and operation via a short questionnaire.

Description

The building was designed by Hong Kong architecture firm

Rocco Design Architects Rocco Design Architects Associates Limited (), led by Rocco Yim, is a design architectural practice based in Hong Kong. It is responsible for the design of many iconic buildings in Hong Kong and Guangdong province, including the Hong Kong Govern ...

, who were directly appointed. It comprises two exhibition halls, activity rooms, a 400-seat theatre, a gift shop and a restaurant. It will be built on a landfill site formerly occupied by the West Kowloon Nursery Park. The museum will display artefacts borrowed from

's own Palace Museum, some of which have never been put on public display before.

History

Conception

Then-Chief Secretary

Carrie Lam Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor ( Cheng; ; born 13 May 1957) is a retired Hong Kong politician who served as the 4th Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022. She served as Chief Secretary for Administration between 2012 and 2017 and Sec ...

stated that the idea of the museum was conceived during an event in Beijing in September 2015. She said that she asked the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust about funding the HK$3.5 billion project in December 2015, and that the request was approved by their board of directors in October 2016.

Announcement and reaction

News of the museum was made public in a surprise announcement on 23 December 2016. On that day, Lam signed a cooperation agreement with the Palace Museum in Beijing. The signing was witnessed by Chief Executive

Leung Chun-ying Leung Chun-ying (; born 12 August 1954), also known as CY Leung, is a Hong Kong politician and chartered surveyor, who has served as vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference since Ma ...

and Chinese culture minister Luo Shugang. Leung commented, "This is the best and greatest gift to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland", referring to the 2017 commemoration of

the Handover Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the British Hong Kong, former colony. Hong Kong was establ ...

. The new museum will display relics lent from the Palace Museum on a long-term basis. It will be managed by a subsidiary of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA). The cost of construction is planned to be covered by a HK$3.5 billion donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The funding arrangement circumvents the need for the government to seek funding from the Legislative Council. The announcement was controversial. Critics complained of the lack of consultation. Others view the museum as an effort to increase Beijing's influence in Hong Kong and as a "political scheme" to foment patriotism. This follows a year of political turmoil in Hong Kong surrounding Beijing's encroachment on the territory's rights and freedoms. Ada Wong, who sits on the consultation panel of the WKCDA, said that the panel received no notification prior to the announcement of the new museum. She questioned the secrecy surrounding the project, asking: "If it is a good proposal, why didn’t they communicate with us sooner? ..The government should tell us why it chose to inform Hong Kong people in this manner. It should explain why it didn’t begin the consultation process sooner, whether West Kowloon is the best site, and who will lead the project." She said she would not oppose the museum, but suggested that its content should be presented from a Hong Kong perspective. Legislator

James To James To Kun-sun (; ; born 11 March 1963) is a Hong Kong lawyer and Democratic Party politician. From 1991 to 2020, To was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, representing the District Council (Second) constituency. In his fin ...

said that the opacity of the project planning was "absolutely inappropriate" and undermined Hong Kong's autonomy. Town planner Camille Lam criticised the direct appointment of Rocco Yim as architect without any design competition, as had been done with the

M+ Museum M+ is a museum of visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong. It exhibits twentieth and twenty-first century visual culture encompassing visual art, design and architecture, and moving image. It opened on 12 November 2021. ...

, or open tender, as is common practice for other public buildings. She said that the public should be consulted as the government was changing the established plan for the WKCD, which was drawn up with extensive public consultation. On the other hand, a group called the ''Alliance in Support of Hong Kong Palace Museum'' was formed to support the idea. The convenor, Fok Kin-man, stated that the lack of consultation was so that the government could give the Hong Kong people a pleasant surprise.

References

Museums in Hong Kong West Kowloon {{Palace Museum

Description

History

Conception

Announcement and reaction

See also

References