ENG-1982 — Page 306

RECREATION AND THE ARTS

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14 temporary exhibitions in 1982. These featured traditional and contemporary art, including paintings by leading overseas Chinese artists, drawings and watercolours of the last two centuries from Britain, bronze and stone sculpture from Thailand, contemporary pottery from Japan, and calligraphy from Guangdong.

During the year, 278 315 people visited the exhibitions an average of 913 a day. The museum also organised regular film shows, guided tours for school groups and lectures on selected art subjects by local and overseas experts. Small travelling exhibitions were held at various Urban Council public libraries. Several significant items were acquired by the museum.

The museum will move to permanent premises in the Tsim Sha Tsui Cultural Centre by the mid-1980s. When completed, the new Museum of Art will occupy a total floor area of some 11 000 square metres. During the year, the Urban Council announced $3.6 million is to be spent on works of art for the museum, as part of a programme to encourage the visual arts in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Museum of History

During 1982, the Hong Kong Museum of History moved into temporary accommodation in Kowloon Park. Two old barrack buildings were renovated and redesigned to provide two exhibition galleries, a 100-seat lecture hall, society rooms, offices, workshops and storage areas. When completed, the permanent Museum of History in Chatham Road East will have a total floor area of 22 665 square metres.

Since opening in 1975, the museum has mounted more than 30 thematic exhibitions in addition to permanent displays on the history of Hong Kong and Hong Kong's traditional fishing industry. Topics chosen for special exhibitions in 1982 included historic buildings and transport. Some 147 000 people visited the museum's exhibitions during the year. The Central Archaeological Repository grew steadily, with additional finds from licensed excavations, and other categories of collections continued to expand. The museum maintained close links with a number of local societies; arranged jointly-sponsored lectures on anthropological, archaeological and other related topics; and collaboration with the Antiquities and Monuments Office continued.

Space Museum

Opened in October 1980, the Hong Kong Space Museum - the first stage of the Tsim Sha Tsui Cultural Centre provides the public with an exceptional entertainment venue in which knowledge about the universe, space exploration and related sciences is presented through sky shows, exhibitions, lectures, astronomy classes and telescopic observations. The museum has an advanced motion-picture projection system for its sky shows. in the 316-seat space theatre. In 1982, three full-length sky shows were produced and two films were shown from a programme of Omnimax film shows introduced during the year.

On display in the 1 000-square-metre main exhibition hall are more than 30 sets of exhibits. The Hall of Solar Sciences, a feature of the museum's facilities, marked the beginning of substantial solar observation in Hong Kong. A major attraction is a high-precision solar telescope, offering 'live' information about the sun, accompanied by 14 groups of exhibits and a series of micro-computers. In the 198-seat lecture hall, talks on astronomy and space science for students and the public, as well as other cultural activities, were held during the year, with the sophisticated Zeiss planetarium projector used as a teaching aid.