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MR. FORSGATE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I do not seem to have got my message across, I may be a little slow on this. Mr. Chairman, the Government Architectural Department have made a decision with which the Urban Council wholly agrees to go ahead with the design as produced by the Principal Government Architect. It has our blessing. It is an excellent design and there is no room in that design for the Kowloon Railway Station, apart may be for the clocktower.
MRS. ELLIOTT (in English):-Does Mr. FORSGATE mean we have decided what we have decided and it is closed book, and therefore if the Hong Kong Heritage Society ask that the decision should not be put before the Governor but that there should be time, there should be delay for consideration? We must just throw that aside and say we have decided. This is what is going to be. Our plan is best and right and we will not consider any other. Is that what Mr. FORSGATE means?
MR. FORSGATE (in English):—The short answer is yes. (Laughter).
MRS. ELLIOTT (in English):-Thank you.
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Miss Cecilia YEUNG asks for the floor and then Dr. Denny HUANG.
Miss YEUNG (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. FORSGATE. He seems to know a lot about architecture and I would like to ask him that the clocktower could be saved but the facade just cannot be kept. Can I ask him whether the clocktower without the facade to support it, would it be risky in architectural terms because the clocktower may not be able to sustain itself without the facade?
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Mr. CHAN, please do not distract Miss YEUNG.
MR. C. K. CHAN (in English):-I am sorry, Sir.
Miss YEUNG (in Cantonese):-I have seen a plan in one of our meetings and I think that if we want to keep the clocktower we should also keep the facade and I am sure the facade could hold up the clocktower better. Can Mr. FORSGATE give me his idea and his comments?
CHAIRMAN (in English):-The Chairman will accept that as a supplementary question. (Laughter).
MR. FORSGATE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, you try your own patience. First of all, let me disclaim any knowledge whatsoever about architecture. I know architects but not architecture. The question of retention of the clocktower by itself was considered at a committee meeting, I think a Standing Committee meeting some time ago, and there is a paper on it, which I cannot lay my finger on. The clocktower with fairly extensive support alterations costing the figure of something like $200,000, could be retained on its own independent of the facade, so I think the short answer is yes, it can be retained. My own opinion is, I hope it will not be, but that is a battle to be fought another day.
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese):-Mrs. ELLIOTT mentioned that a lot of architects have different views. Can I ask Mr. FORSGATE since we have a lot of architects in Hong Kong, some of them in private practice and some in Government services, as the Public Works Department has always maintained that the clocktower and the KCR should be demolished and do we have to listen to just the few architects in the Public Works Department?
MR. FORSGATE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, the Government is, as I said earlier, paying for this development and the Government has decided that the Architectural Office of the PWD will be responsible for the design. The Director of Public Works, I believe, has already rejected the idea put to him, I think by architects, to have it put out to public tender, I think not only in Hong Kong but throughout the rest of the world. That is his decision, not the Urban Council's, Mr. Chairman.
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese): -My second supplementary question is from census figures we have a lot of old people in Hong Kong and whether we consider the KCR station historical because it is 61 years of age; I personally think that this has no historical value.
MR. FORSGATE (in English):-I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, whether that was a supplementary question but I agree with Dr. HUANG because after all, on that site before the railway station, was my own company's old godowns and no one came up in 1911 or 1912 when they were knocked down, and said let's keep these lovely old godowns. (Laughter).
DR. HUANG (in Cantonese): -I wonder if Mr. FORSGATE will agree that if the clocktower and the facade were not in Tsim Sha Tsui then we would not have objected to the retention of them, and some consider the KCR station as an antique and in deciding this matter do we think the decision is correct?
MR. FORSGATE (in English):—Dr. HUANG has baffled the interpreter. (Laughter). Possibly the answer might be to demolish the railway station and clocktower and take it brick by brick to some other part
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