192
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
in the arts. The full programme of lectures and exhibitions, together with the other activities of the Council, make a lively contribution to Hong Kong's cultural life.
It is seldom in Hong Kong that a work of architecture is obviously a work of art also. The Colony's architecture has for more than a century been demonstrably utilitarian, and there has perhaps been more emphasis on drains, stresses and ventilation than on aesthetics. This year, how- ever, the new buildings of the Wah Yan College, situated on Mount Parrish, between Wantsai and Happy Valley, have set a new standard in modern architecture in the Colony. Strictly utilitarian as the entire group of buildings is, it is so harmonized with every aspect of the natural setting that views, hills, and even nearby trees combine with the buildings as parts of an integrated design. The whole con- ception is unique in Hong Kong, and should be seen in relation to the most modern architectural forms being used in Western Europe. The architects are Professor R. Gordon Brown, F.R.I.B.A. and Mr. Lars Meyrenberg.
The College church, which might be described as a brick box, and which is already being referred to somewhat irreverently by the students as the atomic pile, consists of four windowless walls of unadorned brick. Interior light is chiefly obtained through a gap which has been left between the wall heads and the ceiling. The ceiling appears to be floating between the walls, and not actually attached to them. The Stations of the Cross are depicted in outline mosaics on the naked brick within. Executed on designs by Miss Julia Morley, R.B.A., they stand in their own right as one of the most significant works of contemporary ecclesiastical art in the East.