No_2_July_and_August__1953 — Page 19

Staff Quarters on Lugard Road

Architects: Messrs. Spence, Robinson & Partners.

View of the building from Lugard Road.

Many changes have taken place

and

and pathways and, even up to the ing all unnecessary embellish - in Hong Kong during post-war outbreak of war in 1941, fairly ments depending for its years which have altered certain long journeys had to be made by character, architecturally, on the characteristics of the Colony in these means by residents travell- arrangement and dimensions of the course of which old customs ing to their homes.

the living room verandahs, the and usages have been discarded.

corner bedroom windows and the When the Peak district was first

Perhaps the most outstanding emphasis on the vertical framing sign of

of modernisation in the Colony in the post-war period is in the centre of the front elevation to the main stairhall and entrance

roads in the Peak District making have also relied upon the arrange- the widening of practically all by- of the building. The architects it possible for all houses to be ment of the canopies over the reached by motor-car with the windows and stairhall, and the resulting disappearance of all rick- fine finish of the exterior plaster, shaws and chairs in the Upper to provide an extra touch of

individuality.

opened up for residences the only means of access was by Peak Tram, and later by a motor-road as far as the Peak Tram.

The actual approach to most of the houses was by rickshaws or sedan chairs, along narrow lanes

THREE STORIES

APTS

Block Plan.

GARAGE

Levels.

Harlech and Lugard Roads, The floor planning provides for which between them encircle two flats arranged symmetrically Victoria Peak, have also been on either side of the main stair- opened to vehicular traffic to way. Each apartment has its own. residents and, as a result, we have subsidiary hallway, in which there the very unusual spectacle of a has been set a built-in clothes motor approach road to a new cupboard, and off this hallway building in Lugard Road, some- there are the entrances to the thing which would not have been living room and to the kitchen. visualised pre-war.

This arrangement permits the servants access to the entrance door without having to go through the main rooms of the apartment.

The building in question is a block of apartments, 3-storeys high, containing 6 flats, which was erected for the staff of the British The enclosing of

of the

the living General Electric Co., Ltd. It is a room verandah has resulted in a simply designed building, disdain- squarish area, approximately 23

17

A