Christopher DeWolf

Hong Kong, Montreal

Cities, beer, stuff. Always too 心急. 🇭🇰🇨🇦Author of 'Borrowed Spaces: Life Between the Cracks of Modern Hong Kong'. Avatar by Colette Holstein.

Articles

Architect Norman Foster, who designed HSBC’s Hong Kong HQ, reflects on his legacy

2 weeks ago | scmp.com | Christopher DeWolf

It has been at least three years since Norman Foster was last in Hong Kong. “I’m overdue for a visit,” says the renowned British architect, who turns 90 next Sunday. The Pritzker Prize laureate has a long history with the city. In the mid-1980s, his design for the HSBC headquarters in Central propelled him to international fame, thanks to its innovative modular construction, inside-out structure and early focus on environmental sustainability.
Architect Norman Foster, who designed HSBC’s Hong Kong HQ, reflects on his legacy

2 weeks ago | flipboard.com | Christopher DeWolf

2 hours agoConfused and nervous, Singapore students at Harvard told to ‘wait for updates’ on US banWASHINGTON – The news arrived quietly on his mobile phone, that Harvard University has been barred from enrolling international students.
The Provocations of Michele De Lucchi, Memphis Group Co-Founder

2 weeks ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

Italy is Hong Kong’s partner for this year’s Business of Design Week. Over the next several months, we’ll be introducing you to some of the designers and projects that will be highlighted at the BODW Summit in December. This month, we’re starting with an icon of Italian design: Michele De Lucchi. For someone who lives in the Italian countryside and works in Milan, Michele De Lucchi is no stranger to Hong Kong.
How Bianca Tse and Greg Girard Used AI to Reimagine the Kowloon Walled City

2 weeks ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

Bianca Tse doesn’t remember anything about the Kowloon Walled City from when she was growing up in 1980s Hong Kong. But when she finally learned about it, years after it had been demolished, there was something immediately familiar about the infamous informal settlement. Now, nearly 20 years later, Tse has created an entire world of AI-generated images inspired by the Walled City, including an extraordinary collaboration with renowned Walled City photographer Greg Girard.
Inside One Bedford Place, an architect’s nostalgic tribute to old Hong Kong

3 weeks ago | scmp.com | Christopher DeWolf

When Lofter Group was founded by entrepreneur Carol Chow Pui-yin in 2012, its focus was on renovating old industrial properties. Now it has just unveiled its first new-build office tower, One Bedford Place, with an interior design that references the heritage of its surroundings in Tai Kok Tsui. And for that, the upstart property developer tapped architect Frank Leung and his design firm, via.
Hong Kong’s historical shops preserve city’s unique charm and craftsmanship

4 weeks ago | scmp.com | Christopher DeWolf

In 2018, when a wave of long-standing Hong Kong shops closed because of rising rents and owners taking their retirement, Ian Ma Kei-loc felt compelled to act. He began visiting old shops to speak to their owners and document their stories. “I just wanted to make a simple record in case they disappeared,” he says.
Happy Valley’s Cemeteries: A Jewish Burial Ground Built on Cultural Exchange

1 month ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

Like many of Hong Kong’s other historic cemeteries, the city’s Jewish burial ground is in Happy Valley – but not where you’d expect it to be. Instead of on the hillside overlooking the race course, alongside the Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu and Parsi cemeteries, it’s in the upper part of the valley, tucked behind a Buddhist nunnery and overshadowed by the Jockey Club’s towering Shan Kwong Road clubhouse.
The MTR Turns 45: What’s Left of the KCR?

1 month ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

There’s a treasure trove of MTR history hidden in a discreet corner of Hung Hom Station. To access the Station Rail Voyage exhibition, you need to first register online for a free visit, then make your way past fast-food kiosks and a waiting area for the slow train to China. Then you’ll discover decades of artefacts from Hong Kong’s renowned metro system: maps, posters, control panels, even decommissioned trains that you can board for a journey back in time.
Chinese Restaurants, the Next Frontier for Hong Kong Craft Beer

1 month ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

The Young Master sits serenely in a private room at the back of Bowrington Bridge Hot Pot. Beefy steam fills the air as he watches his team of beermakers embark on a night of celebration. Someone uses a chopstick to pop open a large bottle of beer and pours it ceremoniously in the waiting glasses of the assembled diners. “Jam2 bui1 (飲杯)!” they exclaim, clinking their small glasses together in a roar of festive approval.
What’s Behind the Rise of Specialty Coffee in Hong Kong

1 month ago | zolimacitymag.com | Christopher DeWolf

Shek Wu Hui is a bustling old market town, an old-fashioned kind of place where goods of all kinds spill out from vintage walkup buildings: lively but far from trendy. It’s certainly not the kind of place where you’d expect to find specialty coffee. And yet, there it is, in a white-walled shop with local art on the walls, French electropop group playing on the stereo and a crowd of twentysomething regulars chatting with the barista as he pulls shots of espresso from a Marzocco machine.