Guided Visit: SCAD and Mei Ho House With Bernardo Coronado-Guerra and Tony Lam

On this Guided Visit the HKU Museum Society will be taking you to not one but two buildings that have gone under conservation and revitalization. The first is the former North Kowloon Magistracy building which is now home to Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) with Bernardo Coronado-Guerra, and the second is Mei Ho House, the only surviving Mark I H-shaped housing estate block with Tony Lam.

In September 2010, the Hong Kong opened its doors SCAD in the former North Kowloon Magistracy in the bustling Sham Shui Po district. SCAD revitalized the historic North Kowloon Magistracy building, a former courthouse, into the leading site for the study of art and design in Asia, while honouring the structure’s historic and cultural significance. For its extensive rehabilitation and careful conservation of this majestic site, the university earned an Honorable Mention in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation in 2011. As part of the revitalization scheme, SCAD has conserved an original jail cell and one original courtroom which will be featured in the tour.

Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Blocks were built by the government in 1954 to rehouse the massive number of victims of the disastrous Shek Kip Mei Fire in the previous year. Mei Ho House was one of the first eight Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Blocks, which marked the commencement of Hong Kong’s public housing programme. The building witnessed the development of Hong Kong’s public housing and the evolution of the residents’ living environments since 1954. Mei Ho House is the only surviving Mark I H-shaped resettlement block in Hong Kong and the first design for public housing of the same category. Revitalised from Mei Ho House, the block today houses a youth hostel with 129 rooms and also houses the Heritage of Mei Ho House (HMHH) Museum, the first privately-run museum of Hong Kong Housing, established and operated by the Hong Kong Youth Hostels Association.

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Resource Persons

Bernardo Coronado-Guerra is the Executive Director of Design and Operations at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Originally from Mexico City, but a world traveller since childhood, he received his undergraduate degree in Architecture and later moved to Savannah, in the United States, for his graduate degree in Interior Design from SCAD. Bernardo is known for his love of cats, especially his own, Doris.

Tony Lam is the founding director of AGC Design Ltd. He has been a practicing architect for over three decades and involved in various private and public projects. He is also a conservation architect working on various heritage conservation projects such as Central Market Revitalization. Being a former member of Antiquities Advisory Board and the chairman of the heritage & conservation committee, Hong Kong Institute of Architects, Tony is familiar with the heritage conservation issues and active in the field of architectural conservation in Hong Kong. His project Lui Seng Chun Revitalization has received the HKIA Special Architectural Award in 2012. He is the author of the book “Heritage Conservation and Local Culture” 《建築保育與本土文化》