"Projecting Future Heritage: A Hong Kong Archive," one of the Roving Architecture Exhibitions organized by The Hong Kong Institute of Architects Biennale Foundation under the sponsorship of the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, 31 January, at the Former Residence of Prince Sawasdiprawat (Sommot Amornbhand) in Bangkok. Unveiled at the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2025 in Venice, where it garnered widespread international attention, this Roving Exhibition series brings Hong Kong's archive of civic architectures to Bangkok. Responding to the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2025, 'Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective', the exhibition's curators Fai Au, Ying Zhou, and Sunnie S.Y. Lau highlight the collective 'intelligens' of Hong Kong's public infrastructures that represents the Hong Kong's shifting paradigms.
The exhibition reveals how Hong Kong's underestimated architectural and urban achievements have for decades fulfilled the pressing mandates that cities around the world now face, like combatting climate change, managing extreme density, and maintaining a cultural life for citizens in shared public spaces. Around 30 exhibits to be re-presented from Venice in Bangkok include composite buildings, multi-functional market complexes, co-op housing, public housing estates, as well as street infrastructures, impacts of airport development and public spaces of housing estates—structures designed by local architects that are little documented, studied, or shared internationally and thus worthy for showcase in more cities.
