ENG-1985 — Page 327

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RECREATION AND THE ARTS

a 200-year-old traditional Hakka house known as the Law Uk. When completed at the end of 1987, the Folk Museum would become the second branch museum of the Museum of History, the first being the Han Tomb preserved in situ at Lei Cheng Uk. This itself continued to attract visitors and organised school parties, and recorded a total attendance of 46 097.

Hong Kong Space Museum

The Hong Kong Space Museum, run by the Urban Council, continued to organise a wide range of educational and entertaining programmes which were enjoyed by 443 000 visitors during the year. New attractions were added to the exhibition halls, and the museum's new Sky Show retold the story of Halley's Comet. To foster interest in astronomy, particularly among young people, the museum organised various extension activities, including astronomy classes, film shows and an astronomy quiz competition. The museum also produced four new publications in connection with its various programmes.

The Combined Museum Project

The Science Museum was given the final go-ahead in 1985 when the Urban Council decided to finance the construction of a combined Museum of Science and History on the designated Chatham Road East site in a phased programme of development. The initial phase will be the construction of a museum, covering a broad spectrum of science, with a gross area of 13 500 square metres. This will be followed by future development on the same site for the expansion of the Science Museum and construction of a permanent Museum of History.

The year saw further support from the community for the Science Museum when donations in cash and in kind continued to be forthcoming. Leading figures in the academic institutions also offered their assistance in formulating story lines for exhibition themes for the future museum.

Extension activities and science exhibitions continued to be organised by the Science Museum Planning Office. The well-established Popular Science Lectures attracted a total attendance of about 3000 and the exhibition on '100 Years of Electrical Progress' attracted an attendance of more than 5 000 during a three-day period.

Hong Kong Museum of Art

In 1985, the Hong Kong Museum of Art staged 14 exhibitions covering a wide variety of art forms. Three of these featured Hong Kong contemporary art, and demonstrated the art achievement of local artists in various media. During the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial, Urban Council Fine Arts Awards were presented to the most prominent artists in the fields of painting, sculpture, print-making, ceramics, calligraphy and mixed media. The other particularly noteworthy exhibition of local art was that on poster design to mark International Youth Year. Four overseas exhibitions of various art forms, including Portuguese tiles, Australia ceramics, Japanese crafts, and children's art from Kagoshima were held with the assistance and co-operation of the governments of Portugal, Australia and Japan. To further stimulate public interest in Chinese fine art and antiquities, four exhibitions were organised on different aspects, including 'An Anthology of Chinese Art' which was jointly presented with the Min Chiu Society, a notable society of art lovers and collectors in Hong Kong.

At the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, two exhibitions on tea drinking and Yixing tea wares were staged.