Built in 1935 in Tai Hang, Hong Kong , Haw Par Mansion was commissioned by Aw Boon Haw, the Burmese-Chinese entrepreneur known as the “Tiger Balm King,” as a family residence. Its name combined his own with that of his brother, Aw Boon Par, with whom he inherited and expanded the family’s pharmaceutical business, growing it from a small herbal shop in Rangoon into an international empire. Aw later became an influential newspaper proprietor and philanthropist, funding schools, hospitals, orphanages and disaster relief across Asia. Today, the mansion is one of the few surviving examples of the Chinese Renaissance style that blends Chinese and Western forms rather than faithfully following either tradition. Flying eaves, red columns, moon gates and green glazed-tile roofs are harmoniously integrated with more Western domestic architectural features, including porches, bay windows and fireplaces. Inside, stunning Italian stained and painted glass filters the light while gilded moldings, carved ornament and murals incorporate Indian and Burmese influences, reflecting the Aw family’s transnational world.
Sara Mao, a respected art professional who spent two decades at Christie’s, led Observer on a tour of the property during Art Basel Hong Kong, explaining that the mansion’s next chapter will return it to the city as a space for art and culture. Already restored, it operated from 2019 to 2022 as a center for music education and cross-cultural exchange, but after the controlling organization closed, the government spent a long time searching for a new operator. Eventually, the Foundation for Art and Culture was entrusted by the Hong Kong government to operate the site on a nonprofit, self-financing basis. Chairing it is art curator and gallerist Arthur de Villepin, who has stepped up to shape and support the heritage building’s next chapter as Villa Haw Par.
The son of former French prime minister and foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, with whom he co-founded the Villepin gallery, Arthur de Villepin is deeply attuned to art’s social and civic impact, as well as to the diplomatic role that culture and cultural heritage can play in connecting communities across borders. Inspired by institutions such as Villa Medici and Villa Albertine, Villa Haw Par is being developed as a platform for artistic creation, cultural dialogue and international exchange, linking Hong Kong with the Greater Bay Area, the wider Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Its guiding principle, as Mao, who will serve as executive director, put it, is simple: “Connecting cultures, inspiring creativity.”
The Foundation for Art and Culture received the keys to the historic Hong Kong property in December, after which fundraising became the immediate priority, de Villepin told Observer when we spoke after the announcement. In the past several months, Villa Haw Par has moved rapidly from an ambitious idea to a structured, long-term cultural project anchored by several goals.
The first is to reopen the villa to the public so that people can enjoy not only a place of heritage and legacy but also one that is emblematic of Hong Kong itself. “It is a symbol of Hong Kong. It was built by an entrepreneur and carries almost 100 years of history. In Hong Kong, 100 years can feel like centuries elsewhere,” de Villepin said. The plan is to reopen it in phases, beginning this month, with public tours that allow people to enjoy and learn about the home and the adjacent Tiger Balm Garden.
The second is the creation of an international residency program. In its early stages, the program will place particular emphasis on the restoration and transformation of the villa. “We want to restore it and transform it into a contemporary place—not simply contemporary for its own sake, but a place of conversation between the past, the heritage and future interventions,” de Villepin explained, citing Villa Albertine in New York as an inspiration. “Some excellent designers have gone there and created interventions—a ceiling, a wall or another element of the building. We want to create something similar.”
There will be varying levels of intervention based on duration, according to de Villepin. Some will be temporary, perhaps lasting a month. Others can be semi-temporary, perhaps lasting a year. And then there will be long-term, site-specific interventions that will remain. “We will play with those layers depending on the project, the commission and the artist, and slowly build the villa. We do not want to move too quickly.” The foundation intends to begin modestly, with two or three residents at a time and stays of up to three months.
Partnerships will be central to the project, and de Villepin envisions individual commissions and programs that connect residents with Hong Kong companies, local manufacturers, the Greater Bay Area and international cultural networks. “If it succeeds, it could help a new wave of artists work with other organizations across the region,” he argued. Notably, the program will not be limited to visual artists or interventions in the physical building but will expand to include production and research in cinema, design and other disciplines, often aligned with the city’s annual calendar.
The third goal is to create a schedule of public programming tied to important moments in Hong Kong’s cultural calendar, including cinema week, Art Basel Hong Kong and design week. The first major activation is planned for early December: “House of Design” will bring together local and international designers whose work may remain on view for several months or up to a year.
For Hong Kong Art Week in March, de Villepin is particularly interested in sculpture. “I am really pushing for sculpture because we are one of the only locations in Hong Kong where you can have a sculpture garden,” he said. “I want to build a collaboration around the garden, changing it through a specific theme and partnership.”
Asked about the relationship his gallery will have with Villa Haw Par, de Villepin says the foundation will present relatively few conventional painting exhibitions and will remain operationally independent from the gallery. The gallery, which he founded in 2020, will remain a commercial space dedicated to serving artists and prioritizing context-specific and purpose-driven projects. The foundation, meanwhile, emerged from his conviction that Hong Kong needed more than just one more gallery. Among his inspirations, he admits, were figures such as Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, the founders of Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the South of France, who maintained their commercial gallery while creating a foundation centered on artistic exchange.
For de Villepin, the commercial art world too often blurs the distinction between supporting art and merely selling it. “Selling should be the consequence of good curation and good sourcing, yet it can feel as though everything is about sales. I felt we needed to return to creativity and creation, and to nurturing the ecosystem,” de Villepin reflected, acknowledging that it took time to understand exactly where he should contribute. “Artistic direction and curation are where I stand.”
Villa Haw Par gives him the space and a platform to support creativity outside a primarily commercial context. Its broader purpose is to connect East and West, encourage dialogue and build what de Villepin calls an ecosystem of excellence. “It is about helping people believe in art again for what it is, rather than only for the idea that it can be a great investment,” he said.
Asked about his relationship with Hong Kong, de Villepin answered that it is rooted in both biography and instinct. Born in Washington, D.C., de Villepin spent part of his childhood in India and later lived and studied in France and the U.K. before moving to Hong Kong. Living abroad, he said, made him more conscious of his French identity and of the role culture can play in a foreign environment. His first move to Asia after completing his studies was less the result of strategic calculation than of a strong intuitive attraction to Hong Kong and the region. “You have a gut feeling and you go with it.”
That instinct also shaped de Villepin’s new long-term curatorial project in Milan in the historic church of San Vittore. “Milan was also instinctive, but it was mainly about the location. I have always craved exceptional locations and unique places,” de Villepin considered. A member of his team discovered a former church in the Corvetto district, and de Villepin was immediately drawn to its exceptional character. The plan is to establish a permanent program of two shows a year, hosting a broad range of contemporary artists, including but not limited to those already connected to Villepin’s existing program. Conceived less as a conventional gallery than as a site for rare and immersive curatorial encounters, the program at San Vittore invites artists to engage with the unique architecture, atmosphere and history of the site, as demonstrated by the inaugural show by Marie de Villepin that closed in July.
The Milan initiative reflects a reassessment of the gallery’s direction after a difficult 2025, which prompted Arthur de Villepin to remove unnecessary constraints and return to the pleasure of working closely with artists. The solution to the current break in the system, he argues, is to return to fun and to work without compromise: “When you are starting, you can think, ‘We want to create something big. We want galleries around the world.’ You can be drawn into an empire model. But the real question is: Which artist excites you? Which artist do you genuinely want to spend time with? Which artist could become a friend because you love what they do and want to support them no matter what? And if you do not find that artist, then wait.”
With multiple projects between Milan and Hong Kong and an upcoming show already scheduled in Paris in October, he believes everything he undertakes should come from the conviction that art and artists should always come first. Hong Kong will remain the gallery’s anchor, but projects elsewhere will be shaped by the strength of the place, the artist and the purpose of a given show. And perhaps it is this unconditionally artist-centric approach that links the gallery, the Milan program and Villa Haw Par. Though each has a distinct structure and function, all are intended to shift attention away from expansion for its own sake and back toward production, exchange and long-term relationships. De Villepin also feels collectors must be brought into that conversation, and that gallerists like him have a responsibility to help that audience understand why returning to the artist is the market’s most credible path forward.
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