Tai Kwun Contemporary will work on a collaborative model, inviting local and international non-profits to stage exhibitions alongside them. ‘It’s very important that [our exhibitions] are all made for Hong Kong – we are not a pitstop for travelling exhibitions,’ says Berger. ‘Everything we do and everything we think about is from a Hong Kong point of view and with the local Hong Kong audience in mind.’

The non-commercial attractions at Tai Kwun are propped up by 34 tenants, including restaurants, bars and design stores. Highlights include Old Bailey, a casual Chinese restaurant by entrepreneur Yenn Wong; Madame Fu, an 8,000-square-foot Cantonese restaurant and lounge bar by local nightlife impresario Christian Rhomberg; and Dragonfly, a bar paying homage to stained-glass artist Louis Tiffany.

Berger recalls that a decade ago he was often arguing with people against the notion that Hong Kong was a cultural wasteland for the arts. ‘But compared to now, it was,’ he says. ‘Tai Kwun is the most exciting project for heritage and also for art in Hong Kong for a long while.’

Mimi Brown, the founder of Spring Workshop, a non-profit art space that ran for five years from 2012, says Tai Kwun has the potential to amplify the wave of interest in contemporary art that Hong Kong is currently experiencing – as long as the focus remains in the right place.

‘Tai Kwun will have an enormous platform and the ability to reach different swathes of the city that our many wonderful smaller arts organisations cannot,’ she says. ‘So Tai Kwun carries a big responsibility to lead the way in presenting the best cultural programming possible to diverse parts of the city’s population.

‘If it succeeds, it will be a huge boon to the city and will create cultural momentum that will continue to build with the opening of M+ and reopening of the Hong Kong Museum of Art [after renovations]. Ideally, these new large art spaces will not just be the first place tourists head upon landing, but also places that Hongkongers put on their agendas every month. That would be a watershed for our entire city.’

Find out more at taikwun.hk ‭ ‬

Hero image: Mike Pickles