59th Board Meeting of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Held Today

The Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) held its 59th meeting today.
 

WKCDA’s Chief Executive Officer Mr Duncan Pescod reported to the Board that the eight-week public consultation exercise on the Hong Kong Palace Museum project ended on 8 March. The exhibition held at City Gallery received over 22,200 visitors and the online version registered around 22,600 page views. Expressing gratitude to all participants of this consultation exercise, Mr Pescod stated that the views and feedback gathered during the consultation period are being collated and analysed, and the detailed analysis will be submitted to the WKCDA Board for consideration when available.
 

On the development aspect, Members were informed that construction activities across the works contracts have seen significant progress. With Xiqu Centre’s external building envelope closing to completion, intensive internal fit-out work has been carried out. It is anticipated that the statutory inspections will be conducted later in the year leading to the obtaining of building occupation permit, and the Xiqu Centre will open in the latter half of 2018. Mr Pescod also reported that the first quarter of 2017 has seen the best progress on the M+ project to date. While Freespace facility in the Art Park has been making rapid progress in construction, transferring trees from the Nursery Park to the permanent Art Park will also commence later this year. Members noted that 80% of the foundations contract for the Lyric Theatre Complex and Extended Basement work have been completed, allowing the first contract for the major superstructure works to be tendered out. The second contract would be tendered out in the third quarter of 2017.
 

Mr Pescod was pleased to report that the WKCDA has been awarded the Lighthouse Club Safety Leadership Gold Award 2017 in the Client-Developer Category in recognition of its efforts to work with the contractors and subcontractors to achieve an outstanding safety standard. In addition, the M+ Pavilion was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for Best Construction Team of the Year by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors at their recent annual dinner in Hong Kong. This is a testimony of WKCDA’s high standards of project delivery which has been achieved by the team responsible and as acknowledged by their professional peers.
 

On the artistic front, Members noted that M+ Rover Travelling Creative Studio has been working with local illustrator and comic writer Rainbow Leung and is scheduled to conduct 32 school visits and 18 community visits from February to June. Themed “Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Culture”, the third M+ Pavilion exhibition runs from 17 March to 21 May. In conjunction with this exhibition, M+ Screenings: Genderfluid will take place from 7 to 9 April at Broadway Cinematheque in Yau Ma Tei.
 

This season’s Freespace Happening concluded with an overwhelming attendance of more than 68,000 in the seven events. The newly introduced pilot Tree App offers visitors a fun way to find out information about trees in Nursery Park and activities in the District. Members also noted that the WKCDA made its debut appearance at the Hong Kong Flower Show held in Victoria Park earlier this month and the display installation, a miniature version of the District, attained the “Grand Award for Unique Feature (Landscape Display)”.
 

Remarks

About West Kowloon Cultural District

Located on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, the West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong. With a complex of theatres, performance spaces, and M+, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, as well as provide 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.