Social Condenser Extraordinaire: Hong Kong's Municipal Services Building

Abstract

<p>This exhibition, selected for the 2025 edition of the Hong Kong exhibition entitled "Projecting Future Heritage: A Hong Kong Archive" at the la Biennale Architettura in Venice, showcases eight cases of the Municipal Services Building (MSB). The MSB is an architectural type unique to the density of Hong Kong and shaped by its shifting political economy since its inception in the 1970s. Each building is vertically stacked with multiple programs into a single volume—from the ‘wet market’ (itself a term only existing in English since the 1980s) and food courts (coming from the former outdoor food hawkers) to a variety of sports facilities, libraries, theaters and other spaces for cultural function and located on state-owned land. The Urban Council, originated in 1883 as the Sanitory Board and became a fully-elected body by the 1980s, conceptualized the type as result of the broader governmental reform in British Hong Kong in the early 1970s. Proudly building public amenities “by the people, for the people and of the people” (UC, 1986) and as urban nodes serving dense quartiers, the Urban Council also commissioned innovative private architects, including Dennis Lau, Wong and Ouyang, Chung Wah Nan, Palmer and Turner, amongst others, in the design and realization of these buildings. The umbrella remit of the elected body, overseeing the markets, libraries, sports, and culture, facilitated the construction and operation of the multiple functions under one roof. Following the dissolution of the Urban Council after the establishment of the Special Administrative Region in 1997, the complexes were renamed as “municipal services buildings.” Since the 2010s, this particular architectural type is not longer constructed. Today, the buildings of this overlooked type, representing a bygone era of civicness, are quietly disappearing. The documentation and analyses of the cases presented constructs an rapidly eroding archive. Additionally, the ventilational studies showing their climate-considerate designs anticipating the Anthropocene, also contrast the consequences of government “modernization” since the 2020s that are sealing the buildings.<br></p>