Where to find glimpses of art deco architecture in Kowloon, Hong Kong

South China Morning Post

6 days ago

A precise birth date for
art deco is hard to pinpoint, but the term came into common parlance following the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, France, making this year the centenary of one of the most distinctive architectural styles.
Cities that embraced the innovations of the early 20th century, in industry, finance, fashion and the arts, likewise embraced art deco in their architecture. In the booming metropolises of New York and Chicago, as well as more established cities such as Bombay, London and Paris, new constructions in stainless steel, aluminium, ferro concrete, marble and plate glass soared skywards, with sleek, smoothed edges, and decorated with geometric forms. In East Asia, Shanghai is the best known and largest repository of art deco buildings, but examples can also be found in Tokyo, Singapore, Tianjin, Guangzhou and,
if you know where to look, Hong Kong
The prestigious King George V School in Ho Man Tin is a prime example of Hong Kong's art deco architecture. Photo: SCMP Archive
The British colony was neither an early nor prolific adopter of art deco. Most examples here were built in the late 1930s, such as the frontage of King George V School in Ho Man Tin. While one of two great picture palaces, the Majestic Theatre in Jordan, opened in 1928, the other, the Cathay in Wan Chai, came more than a decade later, in 1939. Both are now demolished. Much else came post-war, such as
the Star Ferry terminals (an example of Streamline Moderne, a late variation of the art deco style), as well as the pier constructed in 1979 at Hung Hom.
The 1937-built Maryknoll Convent School, on Waterloo Road, features distinct art deco influences alongside those of Gothic Revival, Neo-Georgian and Romanesque. Local architecture firm Little, Adams and Wood seem to have been conflicted between the early 20th century fads among British university and school architects for Tudor and Gothic Revival and the more recent popularity of art deco. Well maintained, Maryknoll may be a bit of an architectural mash-up, but it still functions brilliantly as a school building, with a large assembly hall, classrooms flooded with natural light and colonnaded walkways.
A view of the primary school campus of Maryknoll Convent School in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP Archives
At the busy junction of Prince Edward Road West and Yuen Ngai Street, where most people blithely rush past, heads bent over phone screens, is a surviving example of Kowloon-side art deco. Built by Belgian construction company Crédit Foncier d'Extrême-Orient (CFEO) in the 1930s, the cluster of apartment buildings and ground-floor retail premises at 190-220 Prince Edward Road West was designed as 'modern flats' for middle-class families, with shophouses and a shady colonnade at street level. The building is replete with art deco features, from the cantilevered balconies that overlook Yuen Ngai Street to the floor-to-ceiling windows that allow daylight to spill in and the recurrent wave pattern on the exterior of the colonnade pillars and stairway frontages that take their inspiration from traditional Asian imagery.