ENG-1989 — Page 363

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RECREATION AND THE ARTS

local archaeology were held in October and December for teachers and university students. All classes were oversubscribed.

The thematic travelling exhibitions to schools and institutes remained extremely popular. Converted from a 200-year-old Hakka house, the Law Uk Folk Museum in Chai Wan will be opened in January 1990. A branch of the Museum of History, the folk museum comprises two houses, the renovated original village house furnished as a period house for the display of rural furniture and farming implements and a one-storey annex building featuring the history of the development of Chai Wan with special reference to the Law family whose ancestors from North China settled in Chai Wan 200 years ago.

The Lei Cheng Uk Branch Museum, where the current exhibition Han Tombs in Guangzhou is on display, attracted 43 000 visitors.

Hong Kong Space Museum

An exhibit renewal programme for the Hong Kong Space Museum will be completed late in 1990. A total of 55 exciting new exhibits, most of which are participatory, will be provided to replace existing ones at a cost of $20 million.

Work on recladding the Space Museum was implemented. The first stage, comprising the re-tiling of the horizontal section of the museum to harmonise with the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, was completed at the end of the year. Work on the second stage, the metal cladding of the dome surface and reconstruction of the pool, will begin in 1990.

During the year, major attractions in the museum's Space Theatre included three Omnimax film shows, The Great Barrier Reef, Grand Canyon - The Hidden Secrets and The Beavers, two sky shows, Wonders of the Worlds and The Comic Perils, and two educational programmes for students, The Magic Sky and Introducing the Solar System. In addition to permanent exhibitions in the museum's two exhibition halls, temporary exhibitions on themes of the shows were also held. These attracted around 2 135 000 people.

The museum also published the 1990 Astro-Calendar, a pictorial book entitled The Starry Sky, 40 sets of new postcards and star maps. Other activities included nine lectures, 10 courses and 20 monthly film shows on astronomy, space science and related topics.

Hong Kong Museum of Science and Technology

Construction of the four-storey Hong Kong Museum of Science and Technology pro- gressed smoothly and the building was topped-out on July 7, 1989. It is scheduled to open in late 1990.

The museum will have 500 exhibits including the largest energy machine of its kind in the world and the latest exhibition techniques will be used. Nearly half the exhibits are original designs created jointly by the three overseas design teams and museum staff. Most of the exhibits are designed to allow visitors to touch and operate to learn science and technology in an entertaining and dynamic way.

The museum building will have 13 500 square metres of which 7 500 square metres are exhibition areas and the remainder are public facilities including a 300-seat lecture theatre, a computer room, a laboratory and a bookshop. There will be an exhibition hall dealing with basic science, applied science and life science, a computer hall explaining the concepts and applications of computers and robotics, a communication hall explaining commu- nication technology and an area dealing with the application of different technology in home appliances.

With a view to fostering close co-operation with commerce and industry, the museum has received encouraging and generous sponsorship from leading local corporations.