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West Kowloon Sure-Win by David Tang ¾H ¥Ã Ãò - from appledaily.atnext.com 06/12/2004



Scream all you want; jump all you want; clench your fists as tightly as you want, and grind your teeth until they are pulverized to calcium powder ¡V nothing you and I, the ordinary citizens, can do will prevent one result on which I am prepared to bet everything I have!
Donald Tsang had already repeated his resolution (don't forget that West Kowloon is his baby) to build what he and his colleagues have called "a cultural hub" in Hong Kong. Apart from the fact that the word "hub" is ghastly, the Government seems to have forgotten to emphasize that the cultural element in the West Kowloon project forms only a tiny part of the whole development. At the end of the day, West Kowloon is another commercial mega-project that Hong Kong is obsessed with, because we apparently want to show off to the world that we are the biggest and the best. (This absurd and vulgar mentality calls for a separate airing.)
Meanwhile, I can predict the result for you: the consortium of Cheung Kong and Sun Hung Kai Properties will win, with Norman Foster working closely with them; and there will be at least two international museums: the Guggenheim and the Pompidou. And I urge anyone who is given odds also to place a bet. It's a sure-win.


Let me say straightaway that this would be an excellent result because one, Foster's winning design will be left more or less intact; two, with Foster's supreme connections, a great deal of international cultural and entertainment enterprises will be persuaded to fill the critical element of what I might call the "software" of the entire cultural complex; and three, Tom Krens will make sure that the Guggenheim Museum will be run supremely professionally.
What then, I ask, is the point of a bidding process with the other two consortia? The Government clearly feels that it has to go through this process in order to demonstrate fair play ¡V it has got to behave some of the time! Yet the whole affair is a foregone conclusion. For if Norman Foster is working exclusively with Cheung Kong and Sun Hung Kai Properties, what chances are there left for the other two consortia? Besides, the other two have offered designs which have significantly departed from Foster's original winning design and this would be difficult not only for Foster to accept, but also for the Government to swallow the promise to the winner of the competition. Let us also not forget that it was Sun Hung Kai Properties who worked with Foster in the original competition; and for Cheung Kong, Victor Li is clearly determined to win this project to ensure his legacy of a significant achievement. His brother has already the sale of Star TV, the acquisition of the Cyber Port and the purchase of PCCW under his belt; and Victor has surely got to show what he can do! So the chances of the other two consortia are, I would say, like entering Dracula in a morning ski race.


But then the original competition was absurd. You don't first select a massive design and then try to impose it on someone else who is supposed to pay for it by building it. The whole debacle stemmed from the Government's obsession with being "world class" and Donald Tsang and Anson Chan, I think, at that time simply couldn't wait to have an international competition. But nothing was thought through. The competition was a sorrowful paradigm of the cart before the horse.
This is indeed bad news for The Action Group on West Kowloon which is planning a demonstration on January 1. Their march will be for naught. But they might take comfort that no one else will make any difference to the project award either.


As for the consultation, I hope a great many so-called and self-confessed cultural vultures will not play into the hands of the Government too much. Just be thankful that we are actually getting some high culture. The Guggenheim and the Pompidou, believe you me, will be run smoothly. And stop complaining about nurturing an artistic atmosphere. Our artistic values will always depend on individuals, who will either evolve or not, and not whether there is a West Kowloon. So ease off the Government on this consultation. Don't give them any fodder for excuses for they can easily fudge the entire process. Already, Patrick Ho on Saturday had mocked us a little by saying: "What does the cultural sector really want? It seems their demands keep changing......" A lot of people have also misinterpreted what he said about not going against the popular will as a softening stance on the project. He was actually again mocking us: "If people do not have confidence in the arrangement, there's no way the Government can push it through." Mind you, I wished half of the Hong Kong leadership would adopt this attitude on matters like Disneyland, Article 23, universal suffrage, election of the Chief Executive, sale of the Cyber Port, sale of the Hunghom Peninsula site...... Sorry, my editor tells me there is no more space for today.
- posted by 7rev @ 22:50