A Love Letter to Sir Robert Ho Tung Library – a special issue dedicated to the Library’s 60th anniversary

Sir Robert Ho Tung Library comprises two buildings of different years separated by over a century: the old building established before 1894 and the new one in 2006.

In 2005, the Library was inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a part of the Historic Centre of Macao, and therefore included in numerous tourist guidebooks as a must-see attraction. Many tourists from around the world have followed the directions given in the guidebooks to visit the Library, a building of architectural interest.

After the expansion, the Library does not look much different to passers-by, who still see only the old building standing among the shade of the trees in the front garden, as the new building is hidden behind the old one next to the backyard. The old and the new buildings are connected by a stairway, which functions as a path leading up to the ‘paradise of reading’ while allowing people to swiftly traverse between the past and the future. At present, the old building is mainly used for preserving rare books, while the new building is serving readers with diversified services. Undoubtedly, theLibrary has a much longer story of development than mentioned above. Let’s see how it has stayed timeless in appearance and tradition, and how it has adjusted itself to the ever-changing society nowadays.

Sir Robert Ho Tung (1862-1956), whose given name was Kai-tung and style name Xiaosheng, was a well-known comprador, businessman and philanthropist. Born in Hong Kong to British Dutch father Charles Henry Maurice Bosman and a Chinese mother surnamed Sze, he was raised there by his mother and thus was deeply influenced by Chinese culture. It was not long after he started working for Jardine, Matheson & Co., the biggest British trading company in Hong Kong, that he became the Head Comprador and was soon able to set up his own company and made investments in many different fields. His great vigour in both his business ventures and charitable works won him much respect from society. He was awarded medals by many countries including the UK, China, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Vietnam, to name a few.

His residence at Largo de Santo Agostinho in Macao became his retreat from the war during the imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong between 1941 and 1945. After the liberation, which signified the end of the war, he returned to Hong Kong and continued to fervently engage in social affairs and support the education and cultural development of Macao. The two institutions named after him, namely Sir Robert Ho Tung Luso-Chinese Primary School and Sir Robert Ho Tung Library, are testimonies of his contribution to the Macao community. Due to his generous sponsorship to the health care, education and cultural sectors of the city, he was widely recognized and appreciated by local residents and was awarded medals three times by the Portuguese Government.

Before 1894, there was only the current old building which boasted a beautiful landscape along with the surrounding front garden and backyard. The three-storey high building had a façade featuring an arcade corridor on the ground floor, and an interior corridor on the second floor and the third floor, respectively. The façade presented a symmetric structure with five round-arched windows on each floor separated by pilasters with Ionian-inspired capitals. The whole building, on a background of ochre yellow, was highlighted with friezes, arch mouldings and pilasters in white-painted stucco. The structure was further accentuated by large green window frames and a four-sided roof laid with red tiles. The reading area was located on the first floor and the Chinese Ancient Books Chamber on the second floor. The Chamber, housing rare books on its four walls, was elegantly furnished and decorated with items such as couplets, valuable armchairs and marble-top tables, exuding the same air as a classic Chinese study room. The architecture encompassed a front garden and a backyard, both of which were large with an open view. On the enclosing walls in the front garden, the arched wrought-iron gates were painted in green in contrast to the yellow walls, while a stone-slab path was directed straight to the main entrance of the building. On the left side of the garden was an artificial rockscape, a fountain and some big trees. The backyard was constructed as a raised platform based on the terrain, adding another layer to the space. The whole architecture, located at the centre of the city, is easily accessible for visitors while giving them the pleasure of a garden oasis.

In 2002, the Cultural Affairs Bureau decided to construct adjacent to the backyard a new library building, which was open to the public later in 2006. The new building is a harmonious addition to the surrounding environment and a modern extension to the Library’s history. The simplistic design of the new structure, comprising mostly glass, stone and steel, creates a bright and open atmosphere. An extensive area of green space was preserved and added to create a pleasant garden environment ideal for reading. The façade of the building is made up of full glass curtain walls, which break down the barrier between the inside and the outside, filling the room with natural sunlight and providing an unobstructed view of the surrounding garden landscape from different angles on each floor. After the expansion, the basic layout of the Library remained unchanged, with the backyard still taking centre stage. In the backyard, only a fire-resistant pool and a fountain were built; while the original plants and stone materials (grey bricks and granite) were all kept. Part of the original backyard became the current atrium garden, where the old well still stands in the atrium garden which was part of the original backyard.

When discussing the changes of Sir Robert Ho Tung Library, how could we miss out Ophelia Tang Mei Lin, Chief of the Department of Public Library Management, who worked at ‘Ho Tung’ on the very first day of her library career? Having started with being a library technician in 1991 and now working as Chief of the Department of Public Library Management, she has witnessed the gradual transition of ‘Ho Tung’ from a library as small as a reading room to such a big library housing over 100,000 books today.

‘It was in 1991 that I started working in the Library. I still remember what I thought of Sir Robert Ho Tung Library on my first day of work: the architecture is completely different from a traditional library as it looks more like a villa’. Tang has been serving in various branch libraries over the past two decades. ‘Ho Tung’, a branch library where she has served for the longest period of time, has given her many unforgettable memories, such as a poetry reading session dating back to the time of Portuguese administration. ‘I still find the romantic night very unforgettable when the then librarian, who was also a Portuguese poet, was reading poetry along with other Chinese and Portuguese poets in the [library] garden, with countless lamps hanging on the trees and candlelight glistening all over the table.' She also considered the working atmosphere in ‘Ho Tung’ very pleasant with talkative colleagues warming her heart as they all got along and knew each other very well.

As one of the ‘Ho Tung experts’, Tang recommended three lovely spots of the Library to readers, which are the front garden, where they can enjoy the view of the featured building; the old tree zone, where they will see the tall exuberant tree extending its shade; and the reading area in the new building (where they can take a look, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, at the picturesque garden in the St. Joseph’s Seminary next to the Library). When it comes to the future development, the Chief said that ‘Ho Tung’ is a successful case of historic building revitalization and, for the sake of conservation, it will not undergo any significant change in appearance. More spaces in ‘Ho Tung’ might be open to the public upon the inauguration of the New Macao Central Library. After all, a library should not limit itself in its development to merely providing a reading space, but should also serve as an integrated building for art performances with its architectural value manifested, making itself a large pubic area for community culture.

A renowned architect of Macao and a representative figure of local Macanese community, Carlos Marreiros is among those who have drawn the highs and lows of Macao landscape and witnessed the various changes in the urban architecture before and after the Handover. As for the old building of Sir Robert Ho Tung Library, Marreiros finds the most noteworthy part is the neo-classical façade featuring a veranda with side arches, which is an essential element added to the building deliberately by the original architect in the 19th century. The arcade veranda was built for air circulation in such a sub-tropical city, and the arched windows behind open up to form an ‘environmental-friendly air conditioner’, effectively controlling the room temperature at around 21ºC. The arches which are decorated with mountain and floral patterns on the top suggest the Art Deco style of the building. In Marreiros’ view, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library is a very typical building of Macao local style, with many of the construction materials sought locally, including granite, a very common type of rock which serves as the alternative of limestone in Portuguese buildings. The original architecture was constructed with the design of a traditional Chinese courtyard before the addition of the arcade corridor, which reflects the fusion of the East and the West. He joined hands with Francisco Figueira, a late architectural giant of Macao and the first Head of the Cultural Heritage Department of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, in the building renovation and interior furniture design afterwards. At that moment they retained the original appearance of the architecture to a great extent without tearing down the old city wall inside, and they also temporarily built a colourful tin-sheeted South-European style storeroom in the backyard  (which has been demolished already).

It was in as early as the 1980s that Sir Robert Ho Tung Library appeared to the public as the first cultural hub of Macao. Several small cultural performances, including that of notable Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires, were held on the 100-seat third floor. Membership was applied to the library covering the first and second floors in the early times of its establishment. When Marreiros was still a secondary-school student, he had a thirst for knowledge but found it hard to buy in Macao books written in foreign languages, especially those in the fields of art, philosophy and architecture, and then a coincidence happened: Dr. Túlio Lopes Tomás, principal of the secondary school Liceu de Macau and former Education Bureau Director, recommended Sir Robert Ho Tung Library to him. In the Library, the rich collection in Portuguese, English and other foreign languages (Portugal sent to the colonial library) has broadened his horizons and introduced to him a number of interesting friends, such as Americans who were learning acupuncture in Macao and Russians who taught Latin. 

The public perception of beauty keeps changing over time. By combining the old and the new elements, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library has survived the constant changes of society and stands out with its timeless appearance over 60 years. As mentioned by Carlos Marreiros the architect in the interview, the incomparable beauty of traditional architecture owes to its long history, which does not exist in its imitated counterparts.

Lei Chin Pang is a notable scholar and writer in Macao as well as a loyal fan of Sir Robert Ho Tung Library. As a scholar, he comes here in search of materials for his research projects; as a neighbour living nearby, he frequents the Library to read his favourite magazines in the afternoon; as a teacher, he brings his students here and tells them about the culture and history of Macao.

‘I frequented Sir Robert Ho Tung Library a lot when I was small because, firstly, I lived nearby and secondly, there were a variety of books and magazines available for reading free of charge. After all, in my high school days I could only get access to books from two major sources, which were book rental shops and libraries, with the former being mostly for popular novels and the latter a better source of literary books’, recalled Lei, adding that ‘at that time, I got to know the works of Li Pik-Wah, Sharon Chung and Sanmao from the Library, which immediately broadened my literary horizons and exposed to me for the first time the magazines with distinctive cultural perspectives such as City Entertainment Magazine and City Magazine. I think it (the Library) triggered my curiosity to explore the world and nourished me with different cultures when I was in high school’.

As a veteran library user who was once a student and now a teacher, what does Lei consider the most significant changes of Sir Robert Ho Tung Library? ‘To be honest, the most significant changes are my frame of mind and my perspectives of looking at “Ho Tung”’, Lei said half-jokingly. ‘Surely the Library is larger than before with a more graceful environment. But to me, it was nothing more than a beautiful building on my way to school back then. It was not until the Library was inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List, did I start to realize the history and culture embedded in it and its adjacent buildings and get to know this “neighbour” that I usually passed by from a new angle’. Lei also observed that ‘Ho Tung’ has served as a venue for art and cultural performances in the past decade. It is the dance performance staged at the stairway in front of the new building that has impressed him and allowed him to appreciate the beauty of the Library building from a different perspective.

Java apple

Native to Malaysia and India, java apple trees can also be seen cultivated in Guangdong Province. Their fruits are commonly called ‘lian-wu’.

White frangipani

Under the scientific name of Plumeria obtusa, white frangipani is commonly called ‘egg flower’ for its white petals with yellow centre, just like an egg. It is a beautiful and fragrant plant for gardens.

Buddhist pine

The one in Sir Robert Ho Tung Library has been living for such a long time that it is already a companion for two generations. Buddhist pine is a plant of high value with its timber used in construction, medication and sculpture.