Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour: the new spaces re-energising city’s most spectacular natural asset

Article by Christopher DeWolf / South China Morning Post / Published on 3 March 2019

Victoria Harbour as seen from Tsim Sha Tsui East (Photo by Christopher DeWolf / SCMP)

There is a renewed energy around Victoria Harbour as new public spaces and entertainment options open up on the shores of Hong Kong’s most spectacular natural asset.

More than 1.7 million people live within a 10-minute walk of Victoria Harbour. And every night, many of them find ways to enjoy the fresh sea breeze along the water.

Take a walk along the Central harbourfront and you will understand. As twilight fades, fishermen cast their lines, hoping to catch some of the rabbitfish drawn to the churn of the ferries’ wakes. Nearby, a group of karaoke performers set up, drawing curious passers-by who watch them belt out Canto-pop classics. Other musicians are more adventurous: singer-songwriters perform original songs, while a high-energy jazz quartet plays with remarkable verve.

The scene is just as lively across the harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui, where even more street performers and buskers compete for the attention of the crowds that have assembled to watch the nightly laser show. Nearby, couples unwind on the lawn of the newly refurbished Salisbury Garden, next to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which is set to reopen this year after a complete overhaul. Looming over the entire scene is Victoria Dockside, billed by its developer as “Hong Kong’s new art and design district” – a massive mix of hotel rooms, flats, shops, bars and restaurants, all of it looking out over the water.

Victoria Harbour has always been Hong Kong’s greatest natural asset. Yet for much of its history it has been overlooked – both literally and figuratively. Last year, former Harbourfront Commission chair Nicholas Brooke told the Post that less than half of the harbour’s 73km shoreline is currently accessible to the public. But that will soon change with plans for new promenades and other public areas.

“We have the opportunity to do something very special,” he said.

One of the biggest initiatives is the West Kowloon Cultural District, where new cultural institutions including the M+ museum of visual arts – expected to open next year – are rising on the shores of the harbour. Last year, the first phase of the district’s new waterfront promenade was unveiled.

Designed by Dutch landscape firm West 8 in collaboration with local firm Dennis Lau & Ng Chun Man Architects and Engineers, the space does away with the barriers and pink tiles common in most of Hong Kong’s other waterfront spaces. It replaces them with a simple tree-lined pathway lined by low concrete ledges that do not obstruct views of the water. A neutral palette of grey and white seems to soak up the long hours of daylight in what seems like one of Hong Kong’s sunniest spots.

Next to the promenade is the Art Park, a portion of which is already open. During the cool months, an eclectic mix of families, friends, dog owners and music lovers gather here for Freespace Happening, a mini-festival that takes place once or twice a month on this vast lawn next to Freespace, West Kowloon’s new music venue.

“It’s a good breathing space,” says Kung Chi-shing, the curator of Freespace Happening’s musical programming. “The great lawn has a capacity of 10,000 people and it’s one of the few parks in Hong Kong which allows people to walk their dogs and fly their kites.”

The last edition of the season takes place on March 9 and 10 and will feature traditional Indonesian music from experimental band Senyawa, electronic pop by French group Las Aves, and local rap from MC Yan. There will also be food and beer tents, workshops on birdwatching, and a blindfolded walk through the park, to name just a few of the attractions.

Further down the harbour, Victoria Dockside has replaced the New World Centre shopping mall and Avenue of Stars boardwalk with an enormous mixed-use complex that aims to reinvigorate a part of the waterfront that many had come to see as little more than a tourist trap.

“I think it’s a huge blessing to be in a city with such an intimate connection to the water,” says Jeff Tung, a senior project director at New World Development, which developed the complex. “If you ask anyone born in the ’80s or before, they’d recall fond memories of this area. People headed to New World Centre to shop, live, eat and be part of a community, then they’d take a leisurely stroll along the promenade, taking in the skyline. It’s fair to say that we’re trying to reinstate the simple, romantic relationship between New World Centre and the harbour in the ’80s and ’90s.”

To freshen up its corner of the harbour, New World tapped James Corner, the designer responsible for turning a disused elevated railway in New York into the High Line – a hugely popular aerial park surrounded by markets, shops, restaurants and hotels. Corner revamped Salisbury Garden – a public park managed by the government – by adding grassy areas and plenty of places to sit. He also redesigned the Avenue of Stars, a walkway dedicated to the heroes of Hong Kong pop culture.

“The Avenue of Stars now has eight times more greenery, seven times more shading and twice as much seating capacity as before,” Tung says. “Celebrity statues [such as] Bruce Lee and Anita Mui are now lifted up and surrounded by water features, instead of being cordoned off by barriers.”

Walk 25 minutes down the Tsim Sha Tsui East and Hung Hom waterfront promenades and you reach the Kerry Hotel. The waterfront property includes attractions like Red Sugar, a cocktail bar, and The Dockyard, a spacious food hall with outdoor seating. From there, it is possible to take a ferry across the harbour to North Point, where the bars and restaurants of the newly opened Hotel Vic overlook the water. 

In the 1980s, the harbourfront on this part of Hong Kong Island was marred by the Island Eastern Corridor, a busy motorway built on pylons above the water. But it may soon be stitched back into the city thanks to a proposed boardwalk that will run underneath the motorway. Plans call for cafes, seating areas and a cycle track.

Of course, people in Hong Kong do not need to wait for a government-sanctioned boardwalk to enjoy the harbourfront. They have been making their own fun for years. Before the 1950s, North Point’s harbourfront was lined by beaches and amusement parks like Luna Park, where holidayers could take in the views from a Ferris wheel. In Sheung Wan, a night market known as Tai Tat Tei (The Big Place) or the Poor Man’s Nightclub was a buzzing destination for working-class people looking to indulge in a seafood dinner, carnival games and fortune-tellers.

The tradition lives on in Kennedy Town, where a cargo pier filled with shipping containers has for years been used as an informal public park. It is often dubbed the Instagram Pier because its combination of spectacular harbour views and gritty industrial scenery has made it a popular place to take selfies, but its appeal extends beyond social media obsessives.

“It is unique because you have the containers and the cranes,” says photographer Pierfrancesco Celada, whose book on the space, Instagram Pier, will be published later this year. “Local people go there for exercise or to walk their dogs, or just to have a breath of fresh air in the sea breeze. It’s like an extension of their living room. You have access to Victoria Harbour and the sense of freedom is higher than anywhere else.”

Back in Central, journalist Cedric Sam has long enjoyed spending time around the ferry piers, where takeaway drinks stalls offer cocktails and draught beer. “The city’s density and the ferries to the outlying islands create a unique open public space,” he says.

There are buskers and fishermen, of course, but also the odd contrast between commuters rushing to their ferries past people balancing on elastic ropes; or jogging clubs and the clumps of happy hour drinkers they skirt as they run along the waterfront.

Sam now lives in New York, but he makes a point of returning to the ferry piers whenever he is back in Hong Kong. He says there is nowhere else quite like it.

“And the view is incredible.”