The Blue House

If you've ever walked down Queen's Road East in Wan Chai, you may have stumbled upon the Blue House at 72-74A Stone Nullah Lane.

View large image The four-storey house, built in the mid-1920s, is listed as a Grade I historical building as it's among the few surviving balconied tenements in Hong Kong. Unlike most residential structures, the upper floors are constructed of timber, and the two wooden staircases are both unadulterated and well-maintained.

In fact, it's only the second structure to exist on the site; it replaced a two-storey hospital built in the 1870s (that operated until 1886, whereupon it was used as a temple until it was demolished near the early 1920s).

Included among nine pre-WWII "Chinese-style" buildings to be preserved under a joint plan of the Housing Society and the Urban Renewal Authority, the Blue House is slated to be revitalised as a museum of tea and Chinese medicine; the neighbourhood has a history of involvement in the tea trade. Despite its history, the construction has only been painted blue since the 1970s, but the name stuck.

The downside of the planned preservation is that the government must relocate the remaining residents as the project is set for completion in 2011.

As much as I'm in favour of this conservation effort, I can't help buy ask: when the people leave, will the Blue House lose part of its soul?

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