Funky (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Boy, those Photo Hunt themes sure do seem to be getting more and more challenging! And in the case of this week's, I have to admit that it had me: first getting all panicky (another word for which, I've since learnt, can be funky!) and feeling compelled to consult the Merriam-Webster online dictionary to figure out what the word actually means; and then having to scratch my head for a bit before coming up with two photographs that do fit this week's theme quite well.

More specifically, the first picture is of an architectural structure that I think it safe to say can be fittingly described both as "odd or quaint in appearance or feeling" (one of the definitions of 'funky' that I've seen) as well as "unconventionally stylish" (another definition of 'funky' according to the same dictionary); while the second image is of another building in the same part of Hong Kong that has been castigated by more than one critic as being "lacking style or taste" (yet one more definition of 'funky' given by Merriam-Webster).

I have to rush off in a few minutes to catch a Kenji Mizoguchi double-feature at the Hong Kong Film Archive. So I don't have time to put in any links until later*, probably sometime tomorrow. However, I trust that the following descriptions which I've got from Jason Wordie's informative Streets: Exploring Hong Kong Island (Hong Kong University Press, 2002) will prove sufficiently helpful and interesting:-

Re St. Mary's Church (i.e., the building in the first photograph): This Anglican church was built in the early 1930s and designed by the Franco-Belgian consortium Credit Foncierre d'Extreme Orient. This firm was responsible for a number of other religious buildings constructed elsewhere in Hong Kong at this time as part of an expansion programme by the Roman Catholic Bishop Valtorta... Designed to look as Chinese as possible, so lessening the cultural gap between the Christian religion and the everyday Chinese, St. Mary's Church is one of Hong Kong's most eclectically styled buildings -- religious or secular -- tucked away on an obscure backstreet in Causeway Bay, the ornate facade is lovingly maintained.

As for the building in the second photograph (i.e., the Hong Kong Central Library): Something of a misnomer for a book repository located in Causeway Bay, the new [in 2002] Central Library has magnificent holdings, state-of-the-art facilities and helpful staff, all housed in what must surely be one of Hong Kong's most hideous modern buildings... Hong Kong Central Library's somewhat eclectic design was approved by a committee of the now defunct Urban Council. One can only assume that the 'style' chosen somehow reflects the decorative tastes and preferences of its members themselves, and at least one prominent architect has remarked that if this building represented the very best that the councillors could achieve with the resources at their disposal, then on those grounds alone it was high time that the body was disbanded!

* Postscript: As should be obvious from the number of links now in place: "Later" has come... ;)