Speech by Chairman of WKCD Authority Board at opening ceremony of WKCD Stage 2 Public Engagement Exercise (with photos/video)

Speech by Chairman of WKCD Authority Board at opening ceremony of WKCD Stage 2 Public Engagement Exercise (with photos/video)
**********************************************************

The following is issued on behalf of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Board:

     Following is the speech delivered by the Chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) Authority Board, Mr Henry Tang, at the Opening Ceremony of the WKCD Stage 2 Public Engagement Exercise held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre today (August 20):

Distinguished guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen,

     I'm very excited to join you today to unveil the three conceptual plan options for the West Kowloon Cultural District.

     The West Kowloon Cultural District is beginning to take shape, and the credit goes to our brilliant master planning teams -- Foster, Rocco, and OMA -- as well as the people of the Hong Kong arts and cultural stakeholders and the community of Hong Kong in general.

     Your enthusiasm and invaluable input during Stage 1 of the Public Engagement Exercise helped spark the creative processes of these leading architectural teams.

     Now displayed before us are three distinctive visions for this project. Each concept has been developed based on the creativity of our master planning teams as well as the dreams and aspirations of the future users of West Kowloon Cultural District and that would include our children, our family, our artists, our visitors and every single one of you.

     Each conceptual plan presents a vision of how this District can be developed into a centrepiece for the city …
     … showing off Hong Kong’s unique character
     … integrating seamlessly with its surroundings
     … making cultural connections beyond our boundaries
     … and becoming a part of our social fabric.

     We strongly encourage everyone to come, see for yourselves, and share your views on how the future of the arts and culture in Hong Kong should look like, how you feel about the layout of the area, and how the various components come together as a holistic one. But please keep in mind that this is not a competition! One of these overall concepts will emerge as the basis for development. At the same time, we may very well incorporate some bright ideas of the other two plans to form one "Master Plan". So your views, opinions and comments will influence the plan, and which specific features, would be selected.

     The West Kowloon Cultural District will not spring up overnight -- nor should it! It will grow organically according to the development needs of our audience and our artistic community. We want to listen to your views about the District's pace of development as well.

      Ladies and gentlemen, having been closely involved in the development of these plans, my advice is: do not trust your gut feeling, don't believe there is love at first sight. Keep coming and revisit the plans and you will always find something new, you will always find it fascinating, and you will always find that there are certain aspects you have missed on your first encounter. And indeed, when you go home, don't just rely on what you remember, and visit our website, because everything you see, every little detail is uploaded onto our website today. Then you’ll have a huge problem, because all the features are so interesting and so bright, you will find it difficult to choose.

     Thank you for your participation in the public engagement exercise. We are closer than ever to achieving our mission of bringing arts to the people and people to the arts. We are creating a vision for West Kowloon, is a vision that is worth celebrating.

     And now for all of those who speak both Chinese and English, I see a lot of impatient faces because I am standing between you and what you really want to see.

     Thank you very much.

Ends/Friday, August 20, 2010
Issued at HKT 19:32

NNNN