A history of Tai Kwun
Also known as the Former Central Police Station Compound, the 300,000-square-feet Tai Kwun actually comprises of 14 old buildings dating between 1864 and 1925, three of which are declared monuments: the former Central Police Station, the Former Central Magistracy, and Victoria Prison. The locals colloquially referred to this compound as 大館 (daai6 gun2), meaning “Big Station,” a name which has now lived on in its modern iteration.
The latter monument is Hong Kong’s first prison, originally known as the Victorial Gaol. It has been recorded that a Qing dynasty diplomat visited the Central Police Station in 1867, and noted that Victoria Prison was a three-storey building where maximum security prisoners were held at the top level. Hồ Chí Minh was also imprisoned here from 1931 to 1933.
After being occupied by the Japanese military and later serving as a repatriation centre for refugees, the old Central Police Station Compound was officially decommissioned and vacated in 2006. Two years later, the government collaborated with the Hong Kong Jockey Club to preserve and revitalise the site, adding two new post-modern buildings to contrast with the existing old architecture, bringing the total number of buildings in Tai Kwun to 16. In 2019, Tai Kwun won the Award of Excellence in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation.