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Haw Par Mansion, like the old Lai Yuen amusement park, retains an almost mythical status in the memories of Hongkongers of a certain age. Built in 1935 by ‘The King of Tiger Balm’ Haw Aw-boon, the mansion’s sprawling garden became Hong Kong’s first theme park, including rides, a seven-storey pagoda, and a section famously featuring the ‘Ten Courts of Hell’. After being demolished in 2004, followed by a brief stint as a music school from 2017 to 2022, the Haw Par Mansion is now about to embark on another chapter of its life.
The non-profit Foundation for Art and Culture, co-founded by curator and entrepreneur Arthur de Villepin, won the tender to operate the Haw Par Mansion site to promote arts and culture in Hong Kong. The 91-year-old Grade I historic mansion will be transformed into an artistic ‘living space’ that fosters international exchanges, and will be renamed Villa Haw Par.
Villa Haw Par will operate on a non-profit, self-financed basis. Instead of becoming a conventional museum – or going down the theme park route like the Haw Par Villa in Singapore – Hong Kong’s latest arts hub is envisioned as a “working house” where artists can create and heritage can coexist under contemporary practices and support. The villa is set to open to the public by the end of 2026, with the first stage focused on revitalising the mansion’s garden grounds into a ‘Garden of Wonders’ that draws on memories of the former Tiger Balm Garden.
From 2027 to 2028, a programme of exhibitions, artist residencies, and cultural encounters are expected to be rolled out. There are also talks of creating a music or listening space that can double as an intimate performance venue, a library, a cinema suite, artist studios, a rooftop terrace, and a café with a gift shop.
These plans sound ambitious, but according to de Villepin the goal is to create a space that visitors will want to return to for new encounters, rather than a heritage site that most people are likely to only visit once. With the mansion’s prominent blend of Chinese Renaissance architecture with Western design details, we can definitely see Villa Haw Par as a beautiful monument worthy of becoming a dynamic cultural landmark the likes of Tai Kwun.
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