The fine art of chiseling timber
Woodworking was a dying industry in Hong Kong until shifting sensibilities and a particularly fierce typhoon prompted a revival. Faye Bradley uncovers what matters most to today's woodwork aficionados.
Hong Kong was famous for manufacturing furniture between the 1950s and '80s, but demand declined thereafter as factories moved their operations to the Chinese mainland. New technologies came in, and the convenient binding power of glue and screws pushed out traditional methods. "As the economic paradigm shifted, many sawmills repositioned themselves to focus on waste recycling and wood renovation in Hong Kong," Luk explains.
By the end of the '80s, woodworking was a dying industry. However, a revival began after September 2018's Typhoon Mangkhut uprooted tens of thousands of trees. These would have ended up in a landfill were it not for the HK TimberBank, created with the mission to recycle dead trees by turning them into furniture, with support from local artisans.
