How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing political, social, and economic needs, through their yearslong transformations in forms, functions, and management? Integrating architecture and history, this book invites readers to go through the growth and governance of colonial Hong Kong by tracing the past and present of public markets as a study of extensive firsthand historical materials. As the readers witness the changes in Hong Kong markets from hawker pitches to classical market halls to clean modernist municipal complexes, the book offers a new perspective of understanding the familiar everyday markets with historical contexts possibly unfamiliar to most, studying markets as a microcosm of the city and a capsule of its history.

This book is a robust and in-depth study of the market building history of Hong Kong since the 1840s and contributes to a holistic understanding of everyday urbanism, public space, and the birth of modern architecture in this city. Professor Carmen Tsui has broken new ground in positioning market buildings as sites for situating architecture at the centre of the social and economic history of Hong Kong.

—Professor Ho Puay Peng

UNESCO Chair on Architectural Heritage Conservation and Management in Asia

Head of Department of Architecture, School of Design

and Environment, National University of Singapore



As chaotic as they may seem, Hong Kong’s public markets have their own business and spatial logic and are important venues for people to understand the city. To improve hygiene, food peddlers have been removed from the streets to indoor markets. Some of the vigorous marketing activities cannot be sustained indoors, while others take other forms to survive. This book reconstructs the past and present of public markets in Hong Kong. It provides important documentation and analysis of the city’s most vibrant architecture.

Public markets connect people; they witness the joys and struggles of several generations of local people and record the changes in Hong Kong’s everyday life, cultural values, and aesthetic sense. Despite the popularity of online shopping today, public markets remain irreplaceable carriers of our culture.

—Professor Chang Ping Hung Wallace

Associate Professor of Department of Architecture,

The University of Hong Kong

Former Member of the Advisory Committee on Built Heritage Conservation, HKSAR