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By STEPHANIE HOLMES
Pier pressure builds in Hong Kong
Everyone in Hong Kong seems to agree
on one thing about Queen’s Pier, a 1950s-built platform at the
centre of violent protests about its future – it is no
architectural masterpiece.
But the white concrete structure, which sits diminutively on the
edge of Victoria Harbour, amid the city’s shining skyscrapers and
endless high-rises, evokes powerful reactions.
Plans to pull it down to make way for a by-pass have been greeted
with angry protests, all-night vigils and even hunger strikes.
A very vocal section of Hong Kong’s normally conservative,
pragmatic residents have been fired up at what they see as the
latest attempt to bulldoze one of the city’s rapidly diminishing
number of colonial-era structures.
On Tuesday, a court heard an application challenging the decision
to remove the structure.
“This is another little piece of Hong Kong’s history,” Stephen
Davies, director of Hong Kong’s Maritime Museum, says.
“Queen’s Pier was always part of the eye-line, a familiar landing
point. If you ask the average Hong Kong resident about the
island’s waterfront that’s what they would say – it’s Star Ferry,
it’s Queen’s Pier.”
The battle for Star Ferry Pier, an iconic landmark on the city’s
waterfront, was lost late last year, further fuelling the
protesters’ determination to save Queen’s Pier.
The current structure, built in 1954, was created to serve a
ceremonial and symbolic function, becoming the first point where
the new governors of Hong Kong would arrive on land.
When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, it was from
Queen’s Pier that the final governor, Chris Patten, departed.
For Ronald Lu, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects,
the pier is an intricate part of the territory’s history.
“Architecturally, it is not a significant masterpiece by any
stretch of the imagination,” he says.
“But it has a legacy. If we forget about Queen’s Pier, then there
is no relationship between Hong Kong and its history. It needs to
be explained to future generations that Hong Kong is different to
other cities in mainland China,” he says.
The protests – organised by students, conservationists,
environmentalists and civic action groups – have paid off so far
and the pier, closed in late April, won a last-minute reprieve
last week.
A judicial review will now evaluate whether the government should
reconsider a decision not to classify the structure as a monument,
which would save it.
For Steve Tsang, of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, the campaign to
save Queen’s Pier is motivated by a mixture of sentimentality and
practicality.
“It (the destruction of Queen’s Pier) represents unrelenting
development, environmental degradation and disregard of heritage
sites. That is what people are reacting against,” he says.
“While people feel pretty powerless to stop polluted air passing
over Hong Kong, at least they can actively try to save the pier,”
he said, adding that it was also probably the site of many a first
kiss.
Ten years after the handover, he said, people feel more confident
about speaking out.
“It’s not that unusual that people get sentimental. In fact, the
real question is, in such a wealthy society, why people aren’t
more demanding?” he asks.
The destruction of the pier is part of a broader redevelopment
project to improve the city’s infrastructure, and some of the
reclaimed land will help build what the government says are vital
transport links across Hong Kong.
Even the Institute of Architects - which supports the protesters’
aims, if not their methods – understands the government’s
infrastructure dilemma.
“Hong Kong has good crossings from north to south of the island
but not from east to west,” Lu says. “The government is trying to
address traffic problems.” – BBC
 
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