"A reflective digital painting that preserves the memory of a historically significant structure through visual reconstruction."
-------- Review from Future Art & Design Award
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Project description
“Tung Tak Pawn Shop” is part of my ongoing Archimprint series, which preserves disappearing Hong Kong architecture through digital illustration. Tung Tak Pawn Shop was officially listed as a Grade III historic building, yet it was demolished in 2015. Before its removal, it stood as the last curved pre-war tong lau situated on a street corner on Hong Kong Island.
The work also captures another fading icon of Hong Kong — traditional neon signage. Once a defining visual language of the city, neon signs have been rapidly and systematically removed due to urban redevelopment and regulatory changes. The neon signboards on both sides of the building, seen in the illustration, are now extremely rare in the cityscape.
Through detailed rendering of the curved facade, textures, and the disappearing neon signs, this illustration serves as a visual archive for a cultural and architectural identity that is vanishing from Hong Kong’s streets.