HONG KONG CULTURAL CENTRE

(HKCC lower left)

The Hong Kong Cultural Centre sits on the harbour at Kowloon in an absolutely prime position. In the above snap, the Peninsula Hotel is the bi-columnar building behind the green scaffolding screen in the lower centre, and lower left is the pale beige HKCC presenting a bold cold facade to the harbour. (The Kowloon wharf is just off photo lower left.)

It looks to me from this perspective to be begging for something to be projected onto it. Something like what's going on inside, even. There's quite a lot of projecting onto buildings happening around both sides of the harbour.

The finish is tiles, tiles, tiles.

Street side there are two arms embracing the entrance. None the less, it's not to me a building that calls you in. Not all the 'people' in the photo below are real; if you look closely, there is a sculptured queue.

(main entrance, with sculptured queue)

Inside, the tiles continue, and the feeling is of generous and open spaces. It was strangely one of the few places in the city we had visited that didn't feel crowded. And what's more, it was the one place that I wished for it. There was no buzz, or bustle, or sense of collective anticipation, as we headed into the Concert Hall.

Come the end of the performance, and the night, things looked more interesting, or at least photogenic, as we wandered about slowly making our way back to the Kowloon wharf.