44 YEARBOOK 2026 One of the surviving wings of the original radial prison (E Hall), with some cells joined together as a café and (below) others retained largely unaltered (Both photos: Jonathan Taylor) Monuments Ordinance. The site was decommissioned in 2006 after 165 years of continuous penal use. During its lifetime the compound and its structures saw extensive alteration. Much of the radial plan was demolished in 1897 and 1901, leaving only a T-shaped remnant. Two prison blocks added to Old Bailey Street in the 1890s were demolished at the end of the 20th century. The compound as conserved is therefore already a product of successive interventions, losses and reconstruction, but nevertheless retains enormous cultural significance. The conservation and development project, funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust at a total cost of approximately HK$3.7 billion (around £380 million), was led by a three-way collaboration: Purcell as conservation architect, Herzog & de Meuron as design architect, and Rocco Design Architects as the executive. Purcell’s role, which commenced in 2008, centred on the recording, analysis and repair of the historic fabric of all the retained buildings and structures. The retained cell blocks of Victoria Prison, now house permanent heritage exhibitions with many cells preserved in their original condition, while others have been combined to provide a café. The conservation strategy explicitly combined restoration with carefully considered new interventions, and the project has since been used as a teaching resource. Herzog & de Meuron’s contribution was to insert two entirely new buildings into the six-acre compound — the JC Contemporary, a gallery for contemporary art, and the JC Cube. Cantilevering outward over its naturally sloping site, the Cube provides cover for a a 200-seat auditorium below for performance, film and events. Both buildings are designed as bold, modern inserts which seem to float above the ground and the surrounding structures, clad in a cheese-grater-like lattice of aluminium. The architects were emphatic that their approach was to accept rather than interpret history, and the result provides a foil for the surrounding architecture, allowing it to tell its own story. New staircases, bridges and openings in the perimeter walls were introduced to activate what had been an entirely closed and inaccessible site, transforming it into a publicly navigable urban courtyard in the heart of one of the world’s most densely populated city centres. The project received a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation in 2019 and has welcomed over fifteen million visitors since opening. For conservation professionals in the UK dealing with Victorian county prisons, Tai Kwun is a reminder of what becomes possible when heritage protection, philanthropic funding, civic ambition, and architectural excellence are aligned. Jonathan Taylor is co-editor of the Yearbook and a full member of the IHBC.
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