Conserving a cultural landscape : the case of Lai Chi Wo, Sha Tau Kok, New Territories

Abstract

There are many cultural landscapes in Hong Kong contain significant cultural values that worth for our attention and conservation. In order to develop a better conservation approach towards Hong Kong’s cultural landscapes, it is necessary to first identify the cultural landscapes in Hong Kong plus study any cultural landscape related conservation work being conducted in order to develop a blue print for the conservation of cultural landscapes in Hong Kong in the future. There are numbers of different scale conservation works are undertaken in Hong Kong currently. Among these conservation projects, the revitalization of Lai Chi Wo, a Hakka walled village in the North-eastern New Territories has drawn writer’s interest for further investigation and study, since the Lai Chi Wo is in fact a village type cultural landscape in Hong Kong. If the revitalization project in Lai Chi Wo is successful in sustaining the village, the case of Lai Chi Wo may set a sample and foundation to develop an approach for future cultural landscape conservation in Hong Kong. Therefore, this essay aims to study Lai Chi Wo as a cultural landscape in regards of its heritage values and in what ways it demonstrated the spiritual relationships between the Lai Chi Wo villagers with the natural environment, plus examining existing Lai Chi Wo revitalization projects in order to figure out the blueprint for Hong Kong’s cultural landscape conservation in the future. There are two main aims to be achieved in this dissertation. First of all, the writer aims to investigate the site Lai Chi Wo as a cultural landscape in order to interpret/understand the site with its significance in a cultural landscape context. More importantly, this paper aims to formulate a sample master plan for Hong Kong village typed cultural landscape conservation by studying and integrating series of conservation projects that have been conducted and or to be implemented by different organizations and parties.