The Foster design.
Plans for a cultural center in Hong Kong that would have included space for MoMA and Guggenheim museums have been scratched.
The proximate cause was the pull-out of local real-estate interests from the project, which is why officials are saying the project just needs to be tweaked out a bit to get back on track. But the Times cites longstanding objections to the project by Hong Kong artists, who felt too much control was being ceded to foreign arts institutions, and the public, which saw the project as a developers’ boondoggle.
Tom Krens, whom we like to think of as a sort-of 21st Century Fitzcarraldo, had called the project “the most exciting opportunity in the world because of the scale and the location.”
Sorry, guys.
Meanwhile, the Asia Society’s frontman, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is having more luck: tomorrow, Robin Pogrebin reports, he’ll announce plans to build a $52 million satellite in Hong Kong, at a Waldorf gala for the society. The designers are Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
– Tom McGeveran
