Architectural styles and identities in Hong Kong: The Chinese and Western designs for St Teresa’s Church in Kowloon Tong, 1928–32
Coomans, Thomas Ho, Puay-peng
Coomans, Thomas
Ho, Puay-peng
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In 1928, the Dutch monk-artist Fr Adelbert Gresnigt was asked to make sketches for the new parish church of St Teresa’s in Kowloon Tong, which would become the Catholic monument of the new urban developments of the British colony. He sketched a Chinese-style church and a Western style one. The former was promoted by Mgr Celso Costantini in the context of the sinicisation of the Catholic Church in China, but the latter was finally chosen by the Portuguese parishioners and benefactors, who were not concerned with Catholic inculturation. At the crossing of Prince Edward Road and Waterloo Road, they preferred to see a tower like St Mark’s Campanile of Venice rather than a Chinese pagoda. The article contextualises St Teresa’s church in the ‘Catholic cluster’ of Kowloon Tong in the 1930s, where Italian, French and American missionaries built schools, residences and a hospital in different styles that expressed their national identities. Furthermore, the article sheds new light on the authorship of St Teresa’s plans and on the role of the Belgian company Crédit Foncier d’Extrême-Orient and architect Gabriel Van Wylick in the real estate investments of Catholic missionary societies.
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2018
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Macau Ricci Institute