The Central Police Station is a walled compound of historic heritage buildings and courtyards located in Hong Kong’s Central District. Established by the British in 1841 as the colony’s main police station, magistracy, and prison, the site is one of Hong Kong’s most important remaining historic monuments. In 2006, the entire compound was decommissioned, leaving a set of open grounds and a collection of unique buildings.

 

With the architectural preservation and the addition of two new buildings by Herzog & de Meuron, the project redefines the site’s historic urban expression. Tai Kwun re-establishes the Central Police Station as a new symbol of Hong Kong. Transforming a historic place of law and order into a place of art and culture where the freedom to imagine is instilled in the fabric of its preservation, its contemporary architecture, and its public spaces.

 

The compound spaces are defined by the two courtyards, the Parade Ground and the Prison Yard. The design preserved their unique character and re-imagined them as a new type of public space becoming places for cultural exchange and gathering. The Parade Ground, formally the compound’s ceremonial space, is now an active event space surrounded by a commercial program. The Prison Yard has been transformed from its forbidding past to a new open public space devoted to active commercial and cultural programming.

 

The project is significant in that it redefines a cultural past and creates a new open space venue within a private development to augment the limited public space available within the dense fabric of urban Hong Kong.  Its legacy serves as a reminder of the site’s importance to the social and cultural dynamic of Hong Kong and its future openness and diversity. Tai Kwun has become a new type of heritage, arts and cultural hub, one that is open and accessible to all.