Obsolete Expressions: Metal Craftsmanship in Hong Kong

Master Ho Wing Sun is one of the last standing sheet metal craftsmen left in Hong Kong.
With no successors or apprentices to continue metal craftsmanship, the prognosis is clear: Metal handicrafts have entered the dark age; a story of decline and impending obsolescence.
As the world modernizes, mass manufacturing processes and the progression of advanced technology has gradually diminished the need for physical labor in countless industries. Our preference for low-cost, labor-saving, efficient mass-productions in today’s era has meant new generations
reject physical labor related to time-consuming traditional methods of manufacturing with hands. With no successors to continue the craft, the prognosis is clear:
Hand craftsmanship have entered the dark age; a story of decline and impending obsolescence.
Meanwhile, ageing but functional buildings are constantly being replaced due to gentrification.
In Hong Kong, urban redevelopment re/dis-places properties to disintegrate the nuances of cultural heritage of these social livelihoods; further demoting the value of craftsmanship.
Through the lens of Hong Kong’s dying craftsmanship of Sheet Metal Artisans (also known as “baak tit lo” in cantonese), the research proposal seeks to acknowledge the decline of this heritage.
By recognising the inevitable obsolescence of this craft, the “out of date” state is to be reflected through an architectural language of deterioration and eventually, a vestigial leftover that encapsulates
the former characteristics of metal craftsmanship that formed the identity of traditional Hong Kong culture.
Due to a lack of proper documentation into the techniques and terminologies of traditional handicrafts in Hong Kong, the inheritance of the knowledge and expertise of the craft relies on oral word-of-mouth exchanges during the decades long master-apprenticeships. As is the case for sheet metal craft, the skills are becoming untraceable.
The project aims to investigate the take-away of metal craftsmanship in an ever-gentrifying city of Hong Kong. By accepting it’s current state of loss and acknowledging the world must move on, exploring and extrapolating the fate of this tradition is portrayed through tangible and intangible means of representation.

Keywords: Craftsmanship, archive, tradition, vestigial leftovers