Handpicked experience · Hong Kong
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
The most photographed wall in Hong Kong is a painting of tong lau tenements — the building type being demolished around it — and the idea came from the Kowloon Walled City, where every tenant made their own windows.
A famous painting explained against the buildings it depicts
An art scene with no permanent collection, by its own design
Commissioned, tolerated and unsanctioned work seen side by side
Lanes dense enough that sixty minutes genuinely covers them
A guide who can say what has already been painted over
A short walk that fits around anything else in the day
An hour on foot through the lanes of Central and the streets climbing behind it, looking at painted walls. It is a short tour of a subject that changes constantly, which is the honest way to describe street art anywhere, and particularly here.
The best known mural on the route shows a row of tenement blocks in marigold, tangerine and lime, stacked up a wall on Graham Street. It was painted in 2012 by Alex Croft, commissioned by a shop nearby, and it has since acquired the nickname of the Instagram wall on the straightforward grounds that more people photograph it than anything else of its kind in Hong Kong.
What they are queueing to photograph is a picture of tong lau — the walk-up tenement type that housed most of this city for most of the twentieth century and is steadily coming down. Croft took the idea from the Kowloon Walled City, where every tenant customised their own windows, so no two openings matched. Stand in front of the painting and then look up the actual street behind you: the real thing is still there in patches, unpainted, unphotographed and mostly scheduled for redevelopment.
Since 2014 an annual festival has invited artists to paint site-specific work in a different Hong Kong neighbourhood each year — Sheung Wan first, then Stanley, Sham Shui Po, Wong Chuk Hang and others — with each round responding to the history of the district it lands in.
The consequence is that this city has no fixed street art canon. Walls are repainted, buildings come down, and a piece photographed two years ago may not exist. A guided hour is therefore a snapshot rather than a syllabus, and a good guide will tell you which pieces are recent, which are on borrowed time and which have already gone.
The lanes between the market streets and the antique dealers, the stepped alleys above them, and the walls in between — some commissioned, some tolerated, some neither. The area is dense enough that an hour genuinely covers it, and the climbing is the only real effort involved.
The route is on foot throughout and the streets rise steeply, with stepped sections and uneven paving. Some of the best walls sit on working lanes where deliveries take priority over photographs. Light is best in the morning before the sun gets over the buildings; by mid-afternoon several of the murals are in deep shade.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
An hour on foot, entirely within the lanes and stepped streets of the district.
A wall of brightly coloured tenement blocks on Graham Street, painted in 2012 by Alex Croft.
It acquired a reputation as the city's most photogenic wall and has been treated as a fixed stop ever since.
Tong lau, the walk-up tenement type that housed most of the city through the last century and is steadily being demolished.
From the Kowloon Walled City, where individual tenants fitted their own windows so no two matched.
Yes, an annual one running since 2014, which paints a different neighbourhood each year.
Constantly. Walls are repainted and buildings come down, so any tour is a snapshot rather than a fixed canon.
In the morning; by mid-afternoon several of the murals fall into deep shade.