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…the City of London cultural strategy for the past decade has been an unmitigated disaster and it fed into ongoing plans to replace the current site of the Museum of London – via a dropped project for an unneeded concert hall – with two huge office blocks. Rather than foster exciting new cultural activities, the City council has pushed events that worked as corporate junkets but weren’t worthy of attention by ordinary Londoners.
The Culture Mile was a divisive and money-wasting branding exercise more focussed on business than the arts – and with a negative impact on many living close to the Barbican Centre.
Told to follow a ‘levelling up’ agenda by a populist government, last week the Arts Council dropped the Barbican Centre from its national funding portfolio – hardly surprising given the City’s failure to support forms of culture that would attract much of an audience from the many social housing estates that lie within easy walking distance of the Barbican Centre.
As our post on the misuse of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) made clear, the culture mile is not an appropriate or good use of CIL funds. However, that hasn’t stopped the council from diverting money that could be used to finance much needed public realm improvements to finance a BID which will only benefit a few big businesses – and at the expense of those CIL cash is supposed to support. BIDs not only lack democratic transparency, they have played an extremely active role in promoting the interests of property developers at the expense of City of London residents (as we emphasised in relation to the Houndsditch Tower in our post of a week ago).
The Culture Mile BID partners whose plans will disenfranchise residents and erode communities and culture – graphic from the Culture Mile BID site.
Given the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of BIDs, it is only big business that will get to vote next year on whether or not there is a culture mile business improvement district. But it is still worth showing opposition to a project that is all about disenfranchising local people and local SMEs to push forward a neo-liberal agenda aimed at further enriching financially bloated corporations and their cronies.
Despite the push for a culture mile BID and hot air about transforming the north west of the City into a ‘cultural hub’, as this was being talked up, Chinese Estate Holdings Ltd announced it was establishing its own ‘culture hub’ outside the culture mile and within the Fleet Street BID area at its 120 Fleet Street over-development (while the listed Express Building is being retained, a 19 year-old office complex on the site is being replaced by a new 21 storey tower block – scroll down this link for a few details about 120 Fleet Street planning approval):
Personally orchestrated by the Group’s CEO, Ms. Chan Hoi Wan (Ms. Chan), the Daily Express Building, a Grade II* listed iconic Art Deco building, will be revitalized and become an ultra premium art and cultural hub. Ms. Chan joined the Group in 2002 and has since worked under the tutelage of Mr. Joseph Lau (Mr. Lau), the former Chairman and CEO of the Group, for over 20 years. Mr. Lau is renowned for his remarkable success and wizardary victories in securities and capital markets, and one of the top art collectors in Asia. Following the footsteps of Mr. Lau, Ms. Chan has also become an astute and savvy investor as well as art connoisseur. She plans to revitalize the Daily Express Building for the betterment of cultural development, particularly supporting emerging artists, through hosting various exhibitions, performances, seminars and workshops in collaboration with famous art museums, auction houses, art galleries, dancing and music schools.
The very first “Joseph Lau Art Gallery” is also set to open at the Daily Express Building, to showcase the Laus’s handpicked private collection. Mr. Lau has been an art collector since the age of 27. Over the years, he acquired a vast collection of art of all genres, including Chinese porcelain, Chinese antique furniture, Chinese contemporary paintings and calligraphy, western classical oil paintings and western contemporary art. Well-known pieces include “Mao” by Andy Warhol and “Everything Must Go” by Jean-Michel Basquiat to name a few. Mr. Lau’s prestigious collection has all been gifted to Ms. Chan after their marriage, while Mr. Lau focuses on his philanthropic ventures.
“Everything Must Go”, potentially to be displayed at Joseph Lau Art Gallery, is said to be Mr. Lau’s favorite piece. He was instantly attracted by this painting at an auction as soon as he saw the words “Everything Must Go” featuring so prominently on it, which coincidentally resembles the name of Evergo Holdings Company Limited founded by him. This special art piece has always been kept in Mr. Lau’s personal office in Hong Kong, China, and has never been displayed publicly. During that time, its appraised value has increased over 1000 fold.
Chinese Estates Holdings invests largest Asian-owned commercial development approved by the City of London, UK in the last few years by DGAP Regulatory, Shares Magazine, 22 August 2022. See original piece here.
Needless to say this puff piece about a pair of property developers mentions neither that Joseph Lau was convicted of bribery and corruption in Macau and is now a fugitive from justice there, nor the culture mile. If the culture mile was viewed as in any way significant by international capital, then Chinese Estates Holdings would be establishing its art gallery and cultural hub inside it, rather than a short walk beyond it in Fleet Street. The culture mile BID is just a local and rather parochial pocket lining opportunity but it will still have a very negative impact on those who live and work inside and around it. City cultural hubs instrumentalise and degrade the arts by diverting them into corporate junkets and reputation washing functions. We need a culture mile BID and Joseph Lau Art Gallery like we need a hole in the head.
SAY NO TO THE CULTURE MILE BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT!
The header shows Chan Hoi-wan and Joseph Lau.
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