No_6_1956 — Page 47

KNA

FRBER SURE!

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Architect's impression of the new Chapel and Cloister.

WAH YAN COLLEGE, KOWLOON

The next few months will see the opened Ricci Hall, a hostel for sixty Queen's Road East. fulfilment of a dream by the teachers students attending the courses in the In the meantime, several of the and boys of Wah Yan College, Kow- Hong Kong University. In many Fathers had moved over to the Kow- loon, for in that time the new College other ways they intimately identified loon side and had taken over the Chapel will be built. With the com- themselves with the life of the Univer- direction of a second Wah Yan Col- pletion of this building, the plans sity and provided a succession of lege, which was situated in Nelson drawn up five years ago with so much lecturers in various subjects.

Street, a branch of the original school. hope and with such slender resources In 1931 they took charge of the This school had about 550 students. will at last be realised. We say "at Regional Seminary for South China, who were crowded into a relatively last", but perhaps we should not; for that very graceful building in Chinese small building with few of the ameni- the goal was reached much sooner style that you see on a hill just beyond ties of an up-to-date school, there than was expected, for when the idea the village of Aberdeen, where they being no science laboratories, no as- was first broached, it was impossible conducted courses in Philosophy and sembly hall, and very inadequate to visualise this Chapel being com- Theology for seventy young Chinese recreational facilities. It was situated pleted much before 1960. It was the preparing for priesthood.

in what had once been a residential unselfish devotion and the willingness In 1933 they took over from two area, but which had gradually changed to make sacrifices on the part of those Chinese laymen a school of about six into an industrial district with many concerned that made possible the hundred boys which was situated in small noisy factories close to reduction of three years from the Robinson Road, just above the school. To these reasons for removal original time table.

Catholic Cathedral. They continued to another location was added one Wah Yan College is directed by the their work here, with increasing diffi- even more compelling, namely the Irish Jesuits. These Fathers came to culty under the Japanese occupation abnormal increase in the population Hong Kong in 1926 and from the first of Hong Kong and, when war troubles of Hong Kong and the need for pro- devoted themselves principally to the were over, planned and built a more viding bigger schools for the thousands cause of education. In 1929 they modern and commodious school in of extra children.

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Architect's perspective sketch, showing the position of the new chapel in relation to

the main building and the auditorium behind it.

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With these ideas in mind, the Fathers began to look round for a more suitable site for a new school. The one finally decided upon, the Fo Hang Valley running parallel to the railway line

line from Waterloo Road railway bridge towards King's Park, seemed at first most unpromising; the valley was deep and narrow and beyond it was a high and precipitous hill. A careful examination of the site made it clear that the only de- velopment possible was to cut the top of the hill and fill the spoil into the valley. This would provide a level site for the buildings on natural ground, and playing fields on the filled area. As in almost all projects