Care for a legend : conservation maintenance plan for Tung Lin Kok Yuen, Hong Kong

Abstract

Unlike regular modern buildings, heritage buildings contain cultural significance which embodied in the place itself, its fabric, setting, use, associations, meanings, records, related places and related objects. The repairer shall pay attention not to minimize or diminish the character-defining elements (“CDEs”). According to The Burra Charter, the cultural significance means aesthetic, historic, scientific, social or spiritual value for past, present or future generations. The CDEs should be conserved to retain the associated value. However, there are little recognized Government or industrial standard specifically for the maintenance of architectural heritage in Hong Kong. For the Government standard, there are only a General Specification for Building published by Architectural Services Department (ArchSD) for construction of new building and a technical guidebook of heritage conservation in Hong Kong produced by HKICON and ERA Architects Inc. In this dissertation, Tung Lin Kok Yuen, a declared monument located at Hong Kong’s Happy Valley, is selected as the case-study heritage building to examine the above-mentioned research issue. In this dissertation, the author will study the importance of maintenance plan and highlight the potential maintenance issues to illustrate how this historic monastery could be better maintained and conserved to maintain its high cultural heritage significance. The methodology will be developed to address the following key research questions to formulate the skeleton and framework of this research: • What are the value and character-defining elements of Tung Lin Kok Yuen? • Why set up the maintenance plan of Tung Lin Kok Yuen? • What are the maintenance issues and challenges the building currently facing? • What policy addressed in the heritage maintenance plan of Tung Lin Kok Yuen? And What guidance included in the heritage maintenance plan?