Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock all these years or you’re not interested in Hong Kong, you’ll know all about this. The current incarnation of the Western Kowloon Cultural District is just this gigantic 40 hectare (or 0.91 Vatican Cities) complex. Wow, very original.

I think that the idea of a giant building with subsections is completely moronic and that there’s no point in pursuing this. Firstly, it’s mind-numbingly generic. Gigantic cultural building. Hell, there’s already one in Singapore. It’s a freaking durian. And it looks terrible. I think that this is not the way to go. In fact, this is ass backwards compared to many other major cities, namely London and New York City. Creativity should not be forced; creativity should be fostered slowly and must not be artificially created in 40 hectares of land across the harbor.

Yes, that’s what I think. This whole WKCD thing is a sham. This is just the government trying to get people here from other places and treating it as yet another tourism opportunity. We need an art district. But not like this! They want to build a giant performing arts theater there. Well, we already have two. They want four museums. Like we don’t have enough clustered on the same street. They want yet another city square. Come on. Really?

So what do I think? We need to scrap this plan and we need to allow this district to be created as a mini city. Or maybe something like Greenwich Village, or the Mission, Waterloo Street Arts Belt (but with more places to live) or Shoreditch. A creative district where those bohemian art types move in, build lofts (or the government can build some), and they get tax benefits and they create art. They can build small galleries not unlike the ones in San Francisco, where galleries are also sometimes bars. Tall skyscraper buildings eschewed in favor of small, low-rise houses, galleries, private museums, bars, and a more Western approach to culture, paying homage to our Western (read: white) colonial past. We have to let the district evolve slowly and not let it fall into another tourist contraption to make us loads of money. People who move there must prove they actually intend to make art in order to take advantage of benefits that will be made available to them. Maybe a nice independent (as in not Starbucks) cafe. That’s cultural district for you.

Sure, it may sound a little too liberal and too art-centric, but that’s fine. There’s always room for possibly similar benefits for performing artists who may not be able to get jobs out of performing school. This can help them build their portfolio while giving them a place to live. And people from other countries can come here to work as well. Tech-related startups should not be allowed to come here and create the stereotypical Web 2.0 startup in a loft. We need to move them all out into Cyberport. But companies starting up that are like galleries should be more than welcome to be created in this new WKCD, which should be renamed. Not Cultural District, more like West Kowloon Arts Quarter or something. That way, we can actually look more like we care about local artists and designers, who have long complained they aren’t getting the help that others are getting in other cities, even like Beijing (with their 798 Art Zone).

I doubt that the government will read this, but I hope people get involved and try to change this current cultural district and leave Frank (Gehry) and Rem (Koolhaaus) out of this. I don’t think a starchitect can change things for the better this time.