‘The simplest, dumbest materials’: how art gallery conversion painted silver stands out by blending in
- Hong Kong contemporary art gallery Kiang Malingue announces itself with its eye-catching silver exterior. The bold adaptive reuse continues inside
- A 1960s six-storey building has become a four-floor gallery housing a white cube, but with walls on other floors stripped back to their raw concrete
Here’s how to find the Kiang Malingue gallery on Sik On Street, if you’re walking from Wan Chai MTR station. When Google Maps announces: “You’ve arrived at your destination,” your journey has really just begun.
Scan Queen’s Road East for a Middle Eastern takeaway and a Chinese furniture shop. The gap between them is the “secret” entrance hiding in plain sight.
Make your way through the portal and gird for the steep passage ahead. The glint from a slim, six-storey-tall building will lead to your goal.
Monolithically silver – architect Rem Koolhaas went for gold with his Prada Foundation venue in Milan, Italy – the contemporary art gallery announces itself with other bold gestures besides: 12 men schlepped its 400kg main door up 33 steps.
“Hong Kong people are used to it,” says Gilles Vanderstocken, of Beau Architects, when asked about the challenges of building on a stepped site with no road frontage. “We see that more as a site constraint,” adds the studio’s other founder and director, Charlotte Lafont-Hugo.
Apart from the door (which was supposed to weigh in at 200kg), apparently little else required heavy lifting.
