2024

Modern Eye──The Centennial Exhibition of Architect Chang Chao Kang

 

29.10.2024 - 13.12.2024

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‘Modern Eye──The Centennial Exhibition of Architect Chang Chao Kang’ will be held from 29 October to 13 December 2024 at 1a space, Cattle Depot Artist Village. The exhibition, originally launched in Taiwan in 2022-2023 and subsequently toured thrice, holds considerable historical significance as it returns to the birthplace of Mr. Chang Chao Kang. Mr. Chang Chao Kang, who was raised in Hong Kong, collaborated with prominent architects such as Eric Cumine and I.M. Pei. His noteworthy works in Hong Kong include the Pacific House, the former location of Chan Shu Kui Memorial School, and the Dor Fook Mansion in Pokfulam. These sites functioned as experimental platforms where he reimagined modern Chinese architecture from a novel perspective. 

 

Mr. Chang Chao Kang is probably the most legendary architect in the history of Chinese modern architecture, not to mention the first generation to receive the most advanced Bauhaus education at the time. Born in Zhongshan, Guangdong in 1922 and lived in Hong Kong, his great grandfather was a Qing-dynasty government official and his grandfather a property developer in Hong Kong with assets in On Lan Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Kai Tak Airport and several ports. 

 

During Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from Dec 25, 1945 to Aug. 15, 1945, the Chang family fortune began to decline. His grandfather was a conservative man who enjoyed collecting antiques, so he also studied classics like the Four Books and Five Classics and Tang and Song poetry at a Chinese private academy, thus cultivating his affinity to Chinese culture. As the oldest grandson, he was indulged by the entire family and never learned how to do business despite the immense commercial success on both his maternal and paternal sides; instead, he revelled in the world of literature and arts. 

 

In 1946, Chang graduated from the architecture school at Saint John's University, Shanghai, which was the first to adopt Bauhaus education in China. Chang, graduating among the school’s first batch of alumni, then worked under architect Yang Ting Pao at Kwan, Chu and Yang Architects for two years. Prior to the shifting of political powers in China, he left to study at Illinois Institute of Technology in the U.S. and studied under Buckminster Fuller. He then studied under Walter Gropius at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). After completing his master's degree, Chang worked at Gropius’ Collaborative Architects (TAC) for two years, and then was employed at Thomas & Worster in Boston. In 1954, at the invitation of I.M. Pei, Chang participated in the campus planning and architectural design of Tunghai University with Chen Chi Kwan. This was Chang’s first major contribution towards Chinese Modernism.  

 

During the mid-1970’s, Chang moved his family back from the U.S. to Hong Kong where he started a private practice. He broadened his scope of work in 1983 by teaching at the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong. The topics of his lectures were on traditional Chinese architecture and he led numerous student field trips to study the architecture in rural landscapes. Chang travelled a total of 12,000 kilometers with fellow Hong Kong University lecturer Lung Ping Yee and these travels provided materials for a collaboration with Swiss architect, Werner Blaser (1924-2019). Chang and Blaser co-published China: Tao in Architecture in 1987.  

 

Despite his waning health in the 1980s, he undertook numerous trips into the most ancient and remote parts of China and completed detailed studies and measured drawings of the vernacular dwellings he saw at the time through his modern eye. To him, it was imperative to document with a humble attitude these already or soon-to-be damaged dwellings, which he believed embodied the essence of Chinese architecture, with a view to preserve the traditions for posterity as invaluable reference and inspiration.

 

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‘Modern Eye──The Centennial Exhibition of Architect Chang Chao Kang’

Exhibition period: 29 October – 13 December 2024
Time: 11:00 – 19:00, Tue – Sun
Venue: Unit 14, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon​​​

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Organizer: Centre for Chinese Architecture and Urbanism | HKU Faculty of Architecture 

Co-organizer: 1a space, Wang Dahong Architectural Research and Conservation Society, Taiwan Museum Foundation, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Tunghai University, Department of Architecture | Ming Chuan University ​

Steering Committee: Wong Kam Sing, Chang Ping Hung, Yuet Tsang Chi ​

Curatorial team: Shyu Ming Song, Chang Ping Hung, Huang Wei Ting, Wang Wei Jen, Wong Kam Sing, Philip Fung 

Installation team: Hoiwood Chang, Haynie Sze 

 

Supporting Organisation: （In no particular order） 

Wu Zhi Qiao (Bridge to China) Charitable Foundation 

Department of Architecture | Hong Kong Chu Hai College 

Hong Kong Architecture Centre  

Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering |City University of Hong Kong 

AIA Hong Kong (A Chapter of The American Institute of Architects)  

Hong Kong Institute of Architectural Conservationists, 

School of Architecture | The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

Hong Kong Design Institute 

Hong Kong Institute of Architects  

Department of Art and Design | The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong 

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Acknowledgement: Che Fu Chang Architects | SCFC