Four buildings, whose intended doom became highlighted after they were featured in an award winning film, will be renovated and preserved, the Urban Renewal Authority said on Friday.

The buildings, on Wing Lee Street, featured prominently in Alex Law's film, Echoes of the Rainbow, set in the 1950s.

When the film, starring Simon Yam and Sandra Ng, won the Crystal Bear Award for the Best Film in the Children's Jury category at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, a groundswell of opposition arose.

The city's planning authority had drawn up urban renewal plans to demolish nine buildings on the street and preserve only three buildings that were typical in the 1950s.

After the public outcry, the government in March 2010 removed Wing Lee Street from the renewal areas and put it into the conservation areas.

Lawrence Yau, director of the authority, said the street has two core elements for preservation, including the terraces in front of the buildings and the decorations inside the buildings.

"Actually, those buildings on the street are not labeled as historic buildings. They simply are featured buildings, symbolizing the characteristic of 1950s in Hong Kong," added Yau.

Among the 12 buildings on the street, the authority has purchased four - No5, No 7, No 8 and No 9.

Yau said the authority now has three options for usage of the renovated buildings - to lease them to architects and scholars for field research, to turn them into garrets for artists or writers or to provide office space for some non-government organizations.

The authority promised to make their best effort to preserve the internal facilities and materials, such as the bricks on the floors and the handrails of the staircases.

The four buildings have been scaffolded and the doors and windows are finished.

According to the authority, the remaining works include demolition of illegal building works, to restore the original appearance of the rooms.

Some residents complained the renovations have made the buildings lose their original characteristics.

In response to the criticism, Yau stressed that the authority's priority in the buildings' restoration is the safety of the residents who live in them and in the neighborhood.

In addition, Yau said the buildings' outer color the window patterns are the authentic style of the so-called 1950s. The other eight buildings' owners refused to sell, preferring to lease them privately. .

Yau said the authority has made an offer earlier to pay half of the renovation fees for the other eight buildings. However, the offer has been rejected by the owners.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

China Daily

(HK Edition 10/22/2011 page1)