How 3 artists could save Hong Kong's Central market

For Chow Yuk-yee, Hong Kong's bustling Central market is not just a livelihood, it's her home. She has spent her entire life here, where her family owned a fruit stall, and she met her husband, Cheung Wai-man, here too. Now they both sell flowers from a small wooden booth at the corner of Gutzlaff and Gage streets and they love the life. "The mood here is different from a supermarket," Chow says. "You can talk to the hawkers, you can haggle over prices, and since it's outdoors you can get some fresh air."

But it could be about to end.

The government is pushing to have the street market demolished for a hotel, office, and shopping complex. Under the redevelopment plan, Gutzlaff Street would disappear entirely, and the market would be relocated to a new building on Gage Street. "If we lose this market, it will become history, and people will eventually forget about it," laments Chow.

Luckily there is a small flickering light at the end of the modernization tunnel. Three architects, Kingsley Ng, Daniel Patzold and Syren Johnstone, approached Chow and Cheung with an idea: to design and build a replacement for their decrepit wooden booth that will maintain the history of the market while allowing it to prosper. This new booth is a counterpoint to the architects' installation at the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale, called 'Excavation.'

The idea is that street markets thrive through constant regeneration, says Patzold. Shops are renovated, old booths are replaced and new businesses open. But for all the change, there is an overall continuity in the way that business is done. The atmosphere and economy of the Central street market is a culmination of its 140-year history, and the architects believe it should continue to flourish.

Syren Johnstone (left) and Daniel Patzold. The new booth's grafitti can only be seen with a camera flash.

"A lot of young people would be interested in having a little shop to sell whatever right in the middle of Central. The market could regenerate itself on a grassroots level and stay vital to the needs of the city," says Patzold.

Johnstone would like to see the market stay the way it is, with a facelift. He would like to see a fund to help hawkers improve their booths, and vacant booths could be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Chow Yuk-yee and her husband Cheung Wai-man

This kind of aid came as a pleasant surprise to Chow. "I was very suspicious at first," she says. "What kind of people would make us a new booth at no charge?"

But this kind of step-by-step development could gradually prove the merit of the market to those in power. The booth next to Chow and Cheung's flower stall has sat empty for two years because as part of the market's redevelopment strategy, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department no longer issues new hawker licences.

True to traditional Hong Kong market booth style, the architects have designed Chow's new booth to be nothing if not functional. It has a roll-up shutter at the front and openings near the roof to allow the flowers to breathe at night. The side wall swings open to expand the booth's interior space. But when night falls, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary booth.

Chow's new stall

At 8pm every evening, the name of Chow and Cheung's business, Pui Kee, written atop the booth, is superseded by a glowing red replica of the booth's old sign, which reads Hung Kee Din Hei. Ng, Patzold and Johnstone have also replicated the graffiti that was found on the old booth with reflective paint that can only be seen with a camera's flash.

"Quite often something has a history that people don't see," says Patzold. "We're taking that layer of history and making it apparent."