The centenary Art Deco movement is often neglected at the peripheries of architectural history of Asia and Hong Kong. This volume is the first study relating Art Deco architecture in the city with local socioeconomic and political contexts, adopts the theoretical lens to examine how they framed practices of everyday life, and narrates how Art Deco became part of the modern Hong Kong ethos via such architectural typologies as public and institutional sites, residential properties, commercial, industrial, and utility buildings. As surviving Art Deco buildings are hidden treasures and portals to forgotten marvels and little-known history of interwar Hong Kong, Lau and Yeung show us how Art Deco heritage bears witness to the city’s societal progress in various aspects, early efforts at modernization before the postwar era, and its aesthetic connections with the international stage.
