Architecture Must Die

‘Architecture Must Die: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Modern Architecture in Hong Kong – A Case of General Post Office’ is a thesis that questions the antagonistic relationship between life and death by investigating whether architecture can bear death and even be preserved by destruction. Architecture is born, dies and is reborn. Hong Kong reinvents itself every few years and it is particularly obvious in the changing harbourfront of Central District.

STUDIES OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE
For almost 180 years, four generations of Hong Kong General Post Offices (GPO) have evolved with the development of Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong architecture. To ensure the proximity to the harbour, the post offices were relocated every time when Central reclamation took place. They are the bygone ghosts who left traces in the hectic streets of Central.

The first and second ‘ghosts’ marked the beginning of maritime trade in the City of Victoria. Elaborate and grandiose, the third GPO symbolised the heyday of postal services in Hong Kong and the heights of colonial power in the early 20th century. When Hong Kong was transforming to an international financial city in the 1970s, the modernist style was adopted in the building of the fourth GPO. As mails were gradually replaced by telecommunications since the 1990s, the decision of relocating the Post headquarter from the CBD to the industrial district of Kowloon Bay has shown the decline in significance of postal services in… more

PROJECT DATA
Project Name
Architecture Must Die: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Modern Architecture in Hong Kong – A Case of General Post Office
Location
Central, Hong Kong
Site Area
3,700 square metres
Building Height
11 storeys
Student Name
Hui Yuk Yi
School
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Supervisor
Prof. Patrick Hwang
Programme
Master of Architecture
Images
Hui Yuk Yi