july-2010

(左)外形似竹子的
引水道;(下)被嵌
入冰裂圖案的蠔殼窗
(Left) Drainage pipes
designed to resemble
bamboo; (below) icesplit
pattern on oyster
shell-fitted windows
Mention architectural
conservation in Asia, and David Lung’s
name is inevitably the first one to pop up.
Currently deputy dean at the University of
Hong Kong’s Faculty of Architecture, Lung
has been a professor there since 1983. He is a
founding member of UNESCO-ICCROM Asian
Academy for Heritage Management, founding
director of HKU’s Architectural Conservation
master’s programme and worked with Macau
and Kaiping to obtain their respective UNESCO
world heritage status. A trained architect with a
master’s degree from the University of Oregon,
he was previously an associate partner with
Taoho Design Architects in Hong Kong. For his
dedication to the Hong Kong community, Lung
was honoured with a Silver Bauhinia Star by the
Hong Kong SAR Government in 1999.
see Scene
Lung remembers visiting Mandarin’s House
soon after Macau’s Cultural Affairs Bureau
completed its acquisition of the site more than
10 years ago. “It was a complete derelict,” he
sighs. “The Zheng family had rented out the
estate to hundreds of people over the decades,
and the place was divided and subdivided into
numerous apartments. What wasn’t taken away
to be pawned was abused. The Cultural Affairs
Bureau will need many, many years to track
down the furniture and accessories again. Right
now, it is a beautiful shell.”
Zheng Guanying’s ancestral estate is an
important complement to Macau’s UNESCO
World Heritage status, and well deserves its
MOP43 million restoration price tag. “Zheng
was a notable industrialist – a Shanghai
businessman,” explains Lung. “His house is a
reflection of his status. In Chinese Han culture,
the home is a reflection of an official’s place in
society – even though, politically, it is wrong to
call the place Mandarin’s House since he was
not really a Mandarin. Zheng was also a very
influential and effective scholar, whose writing
inspired Sun Yat Sen and Mao Zedong.” Visitors
文化局需要用上很
多年的時間去尋找那些
家具的下落
The Cultural Affairs
Bureau will need
years to track down
missing furniture
can take a look at Zheng’s manifesto, Words of
Warning in Times of Prosperity, on display in a
rear room within Mandarin’s House.
As Mandarin’s House is situated near
the Inner Harbour, Lung believes that it may
have afforded sea views before urban sprawl
surrounded its stone walls. “I don’t know this for
sure, but the house must have had good feng
shui,” he notes. “Its axis is rotated 90 degrees
from the traditional Chinese south-north
orientation, and its main entry faces east instead
of south. Instead of a vertical layout, the estate
is horizontal. Perhaps this also has to do with the
site’s topography.”
Mandarin’s House is a traditional upper class
Chinese courtyard home. In many Guangdong
estates, a moon gate stands opposite an
inscription that references the moon. A similar
2010 JUlY Horizon 019