Campus Buildings and Places: A Directory

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) comprehensive information database · 05 Campus module

This article lists, as completely as possible and organised by area, the University's major buildings, teaching and research blocks, libraries, cultural and sports venues, halls of residence and landmarks, with their English names, year of completion/opening, naming origin (donor/person commemorated) and function. The narrative companion piece on landmarks and architectural character — 〈Iconic Buildings and Landmarks〉 — is cross-referenced rather than repeated here; this article instead gives two buildings previously absent from the directory narrative their own in-depth sections: the Knowles Building and Robert Black College.

---

# I. The logic of naming: why HKU buildings are named as they are

Before the area-by-area listing, one thread runs through the whole campus and is worth stating up front. HKU building names fall broadly into several types:

• Donor naming (the largest category): named after the principal donor or a party of their choosing. The University was founded on this pattern — the Main Building was donated by Sir H.N. Mody^※, the Tang Chi Ngong Building by Tang Chi Ngong^※, and the Fung Ping Shan Building by Fung Ping Shan^※; in more recent decades, Sir Run Run Shaw, Li Ka-shing (naming after his late wife Chong Yuet Ming), Cheng Yu Tung and the Hong Kong Jockey Club, among others.
• Commemorating predecessors and university leaders: named after vice-chancellors or chancellors — Eliot Hall^※ after the first vice-chancellor, May Hall^※ after the governor and chancellor, and the Knowles Building after a former vice-chancellor (see §III below).
• Named after "wives" and "mothers": HKU has a tradition of naming buildings after a donor's late wife — the most conspicuous case is the Chong Yuet Ming Buildings, established by Mr. Li Ka-shing in memory of his late wife Ms. Chong Yuet Ming (see below); the Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building, by contrast, was offered by Lady Kadoorie in memory of her late husband Lord Lawrence Kadoorie (see below). The recent Meng Wah Complex items are also donor-named — the Complex was donated by the entrepreneur Wong Tze Ming and his wife, and its two towers, the Wong Tze Ming Building and Wong Chong Lai Wah Building, carry their respective names (see §IV below).
• Functional naming: named directly after use, such as the Main Library and the Graduate House.

---

# II. Heritage buildings on the main campus (declared monuments / historic buildings)

The table below covers the core heritage cluster of buildings on the main campus. Monument gradings and detailed architectural features are covered in 〈Iconic Buildings and Landmarks〉.

---

# III. The Knowles Building (1973): a Rubik's-Cube modernist teaching block, and the fire of 1984

The old campus is known for its Edwardian baroque red-brick ensemble — the Main Building, the Hung Hing Ying Building and the like. But the expansion of the 1960s and 70s brought a very different modernist architectural language, and the Knowles Building is its leading representative, standing in sharp contrast to the red-brick heritage cluster.

# 3.1 Naming and dating

According to the HKU Giving page, the building is named after Vice-Chancellor Dr. William Charles Goddard Knowles, who took office on 19 November 1964^※ (succeeding Sir Lindsay Ride). The building was completed in 1973, one of the emblematic structures of the University's 1960s–70s campus expansion.

# 3.2 Form: a modernist "Rubik's Cube"

According to the HKU Giving page, the building is known for its blocky, mass-oriented design — its exterior has been described as a "Rubik's Cube" — and its modernist appearance "has remained unchanged to this day"; historical photographs show it once painted orange-red. According to Docomomo Hong Kong, the architect was Eric Cumine; the building's floor plans differ on every level (12 storeys in total), with a grid of white sun-shading brise-soleil balancing the structural mass^※, and the two basement floors are unenclosed and free of walls, creating a "floating" effect. This emphasis on exposed structure and sun-shading screens is in direct lineage with postwar modernist and Brutalist idioms, and the building is regularly drawn into discussions of Hong Kong's modernist and Brutalist architecture.

As publicly documented, each floor has a different plan and the internal structure is pared back, so every level can be laid out flexibly — from small offices to lecture theatres to spacious woodworking studios. The "every floor is different" layout has also earned the building a campus-wide urban legend of "getting lost": many visitors report that the corridor layouts differ from floor to floor, and disorientation is easy.

# 3.3 Function, and the great fire of 1984

According to the Faculty of Architecture's official history page and the HKU Giving page, the Knowles Building houses the Department of Architecture. Per the Giving page, in 1984 a fire — believed to have been caused by an electrical fault — broke out in the architecture studios on the third floor, spreading to the third and fourth floors^※; with flammable materials on site, it took nearly five hours to extinguish. The department moved out for more than a year and a half, returning to the Knowles Building in August 1985, where it remains today.

Background note: a modernist teaching block, a department whose business is "design", a fire that destroyed the studios — in the story of the Knowles Building, the architecture is both container and protagonist. Rebuilding and moving back in after the fire is, in itself, a footnote on a discipline's habit of living with buildings.

---

# IV. Teaching and academic buildings on the main campus (postwar to contemporary)

Note: HKU Giving records that Dr. W.C.G. Knowles, eponym of the Knowles Building, became Vice-Chancellor on 19 November 1964, succeeding Sir Lindsay Ride^※, and had previously been general manager of John Swire & Sons and chairman of Cathay Pacific (per HKU Giving). The Meng Wah Complex, per the HKU Giving page, was donated by Mr. Wong Tze Ming, co-founder of the Stelux Group, and his wife Ms. Wong Chong Lai Wah, and opened on 15 December 1995^※; sited at the southeast corner of the main campus, its twin towers bear the names "Wong Tze Ming Building" and "Wong Chong Lai Wah Building". The "Meng Wah Complex" and the popularly confused "Meng Wah Building" (蒙民伟楼) are in fact different names used for the same location; the table presents both, deferring to the official HKU Giving page — "Meng Wah Complex" / 明华综合大楼 overall and "Wong Tze Ming / Wong Chong Lai Wah" for its towers — with the "Meng Wah" (蒙民伟) attribution marked to be verified pending a source.

# 4.1 Three donation stories: Haking Wong, Chong Yuet Ming and Lady Kadoorie

The completion of the Haking Wong Building (1983) resolved a long-standing headache for the engineering faculty, which had been scattered across "various sites along Pokfulam Road". According to the HKU Giving page, the building opened on 6 October 1983, bringing the civil, mechanical, industrial and electrical engineering departments under one roof at a stroke^※. The donor, Dr. Haking Wong, besides funding engineering research and postgraduate hostel facilities at HKU, served for many years as a director of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and Po Leung Kuk, and donated the Haking Wong Institute of Technical Education in Cheung Sha Wan, Kowloon, which bears his name (opened 1977); he was awarded an OBE in 1968 and appointed to the HKU Council in December 1978.

The Chong Yuet Ming Buildings (1994) carry a story of private grief. According to the HKU Giving page, the buildings were officially opened on 13 December 1994 by the then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Wang Gungwu, together with Mr. Li Ka-shing^※. Ms. Chong Yuet Ming herself was an HKU graduate — a 1961 alumna of the Faculty of Arts. After her death in 1990, Mr. Li donated HK$35 million to establish a fund, and named the physics building, the chemistry building and the amenities centre after his late wife. This is therefore not an abstract case of "a donor commemorating his late wife" but a commemoration of a graduate who once actually walked the campus. The Chong Yuet Ming Buildings sit at the northeast corner of the main campus and have long been a landmark of the Faculty of Science and a hub of student activity.

The Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building (2000) continues the same "honouring family through a building" tradition, though in the opposite direction — Lady Kadoorie was the donor, commemorating her late husband Lord Lawrence Kadoorie; see 〈Museums and Campus Ecology〉 for its collections and ecological-education role.

The Run Run Shaw Building and Runme Shaw Building (together the Shaws Buildings, 1985) form another landmark the Shaw brothers left at the heart of HKU's teaching and research district. Per HKU Giving, the twin buildings were officially opened on 14 October 1985 by the then Chancellor Sir Edward Youde, together with Dr. Run Run Shaw and the then Vice-Chancellor Professor Rayson Huang^※. Sir Run Run Shaw's generosity to HKU did not end there — the Run Run Shaw Tower and Run Run Shaw Heritage House on the Centennial Campus also carry his name, as covered in 〈Centennial Campus〉. The name "Run Run Shaw" thus appears on the HKU campus twice, in two different eras and two different campuses, tracing a clear arc of the Shaw Foundation's support for higher education at the University.

---

# V. Robert Black College (1967): a "guest house" for visiting scholars, and Sir Lindsay Ride's mandate

Unlike HKU's student-facing halls, Robert Black College serves visiting scholars. It is not an undergraduate hall of residence but a "guest house" for international academics.

# 5.1 Function: a residence for "guests"

According to the Wikipedia entry on accommodation at HKU, this residential college was opened by the Vice-Chancellor in January 1967^※, housing overseas — and, later, mainland-Chinese — visiting scholars together with a selection of postgraduate students. This "visiting scholars + research postgraduates" arrangement was intended to foster everyday exchange between international academics and the University's young researchers, and was a concrete vehicle of HKU's early internationalisation.

# 5.2 Architecture: Szeto Wai's modern Chinese courtyard

According to Hong Kong architectural history sources, Robert Black College was designed by the architect Szeto Wai and completed in 1966, built specifically to host visiting scholars in oriental studies. The HKU honorary graduates citation for Szeto Wai records that the building 「巧妙融合了现代建筑技术与中国传统民居的简朴风格」^※ ("skilfully blends modern building technology with the austere simplicity of the traditional Chinese vernacular house"), with a courtyard and a restrained geometry echoing the Chinese courtyard-house layout. Szeto Wai was one of the most important Chinese architects/engineers of postwar Hong Kong; from 1963 he served as master planner and chief architect of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, overseeing its overall development blueprint and buildings including the Science Centre. Robert Black College is his principal work at HKU, and one of the few buildings he designed for an institution other than CUHK.

# 5.3 Naming: Governor Sir Robert Black

As publicly documented, the college is named after Sir Robert Black, Governor of Hong Kong in the 1950s–60s. Naming campus buildings after sitting or former governors was common in early HKU (May Hall, after Governor May, being another example); it reflects both the colonial-era relationship between university and government and a tradition of gratitude.

# 5.4 Sir Lindsay Ride's "mandate", and the donors

The most human side of Robert Black College is its link to the postwar Vice-Chancellor Sir Lindsay Ride. Per the Wikipedia entry on HKU accommodation, the college is recorded as a "mandate" from Ride to his successors, a tangible testimony to a private friendship between him and the college's principal donor^※. Publicly documented donors include Hong Kong philanthropists such as Sir Tang Shiu-kin (the Tang family's connection to HKU also appears in the Tang Chi Ngong Building; see 〈Iconic Buildings and Landmarks〉).

Background note: Sir Lindsay Ride was the Vice-Chancellor who led HKU out of the ruins of the Second World War and completed its postwar reconstruction (1949–1964). Robert Black College, as an extension of his vision for the University, wrote "international academic exchange" into HKU's physical fabric — the man who commanded ambulance units in war and rebuilt a university in peace left behind not only buildings but a "guest house" where scholars from around the world could put down roots.

# 5.5 The Swire Scholars: a parallel line of giving

In the same year the college opened (1967), John Swire and Sons Limited endowed the Swire Scholarships, funding postgraduate students working towards master's or doctoral degrees on the condition that they reside at Robert Black College — today, roughly nine Swire Scholars live alongside short-term overseas visitors. According to the scholars' association, Swire Scholars, through daily contact with visiting academics from many countries, sharpen their communication skills, learn about different cultural traditions and broaden their horizons through the college's cultural and academic events; many former Swire Scholars have gone on to become community leaders in Hong Kong society. This "scholarship plus bed" arrangement follows directly from Sir Lindsay Ride's founding vision of "international scholars and research postgraduates in shared residence", and is carried on to this day by the Swire Scholars Association, which held a commemorative dinner for the college's fiftieth anniversary in 2017.

# 5.6 Location and present day

As publicly documented, Robert Black College stands in the main-campus area (towards Bonham Road), alongside early buildings such as May Hall. It still functions today as accommodation for visiting scholars and as a venue for academic events. For current facilities and redevelopment plans, the latest information from the HKU Estates Office takes precedence.

---

# VI. Centennial Campus (2012)

According to the HKU Estates Office, the Centennial Campus comprises three academic towers serving the Faculties of Arts, Law and Social Sciences, and opened in September 2012^※ (per HKU Estates · Centennial Campus). Building names and codes follow the Centennial Campus coding plan:

Note: the three Centennial Campus towers were all part of the same 2012 opening phase. Their green-building certifications (LEED/BEAM Platinum) and slope works are covered in 〈Architecture and Sustainability〉; detailed donation amounts, internal facilities (moot court, map library, etc.) and construction narrative are covered in the dedicated piece 〈Centennial Campus〉. The name "Run Run Shaw" appears at HKU on two different buildings — the Run Run Shaw Building on the main campus (1985) and the Run Run Shaw Tower on the Centennial Campus (2012) — and the table marks them separately.

---

# VII. Contemporary landmark buildings

---

# VIII. Sports facilities (including the new campus west of Sassoon Road from 2027)

According to HKU sources, sports facilities are spread across the main-campus vicinity and Sandy Bay:

The Flora Ho / Lindsay Ride Sports Centre, together with the staff quarters at 13–21 Pokfulam Road immediately adjacent, is the very site of the new Pokfield Campus. According to an HKU press release, the Flora Ho Sports Centre (along with the Lindsay Ride Sports Centre and the Stanley Smith Swimming Pool) held a farewell ceremony on 8 January 2023 and officially ceased service^※; the site will be redeveloped as part of the Pokfield Campus, whose new sports facilities will include an indoor heated pool with adjustable depth and multiple multi-purpose activity rooms. Per the same release, the Flora Ho Sports Centre opened in 1984, supported for many years by the late Dr. Sir Ho Sai Kwong and the Ho family^※, and served generations of HKU students. This is the concrete juncture at which the University bids farewell to a sports hall nearly four decades in service and welcomes a new campus; see 〈Architecture and Sustainability〉. Public access and usage arrangements for sports facilities are covered in 〈Transport and Facilities〉.

Separately, per the HKU Estates Office, the Prince Philip Dental Hospital was officially opened by Prince Philip on 24 March 1981^※, on a Sai Ying Pun site. The site had previously housed the Government Civil Hospital (opened 1849), served after 1937 as the Sai Ying Pun Infectious Diseases Hospital, and was closed, demolished and rebuilt from late 1978, with construction finishing in early 1981 — the building that today houses the Faculty of Dentistry.

---

# IX. Halls of residence and off-campus facilities (extract)

The complete halls system belongs to the 〈../10-colleges/〉 domain; this directory records only items relevant to "campus buildings and landmarks":

These two "off-campus facilities" in the New Territories and on an outlying island each have a founding story quite unlike the main campus. The Kadoorie Centre was not established by HKU itself but by the Kadoorie brothers — Lord Lawrence Kadoorie and his younger brother Sir Horace Kadoorie — in June 1986, at Shek Kong, with an initial mission of agricultural extension and teaching practical livelihood skills to local people and demobilised Gurkha soldiers stationed in Hong Kong. From the 1990s it gradually transformed into a body for nature conservation, organic agriculture and environmental education. The origins of the Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) are closer to one scholar's personal vision: per the HKU Faculty of Science, the institute was originally conceived by Prof. Brian S. Morton, supported by the Swire Group, and officially opened in 1990 by the Swire chairman together with the then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Wang Gungwu^※; it began with just three academic staff, two postdocs and a dozen or so research students. As demand in marine science grew, it was expanded in 1994 and renamed the Swire Institute of Marine Science, and in 2021 received further Swire Trust support for a major extension and renovation of its main building.

---

# IX-A. The naming threads, tied together

Put the naming stories of this article side by side and several recurring logics emerge in the history of HKU building names: naming after the donor themselves (Haking Wong Building, Run Run Shaw Building), a donor commemorating a late wife or husband (Chong Yuet Ming Buildings, Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building), commemorating a vice-chancellor or governor (Knowles Building, Robert Black College, May Hall), and corporate/institutional naming (Swire Institute of Marine Science). The same donor or family name also tends to recur across the campus in different buildings and different eras — Run Run Shaw, the Kadoories and the Swire Group all do so. Read this way, the seemingly scattered inventory of HKU buildings resolves into a campus history stitched together from dozens of donation stories.

---

# X. Missing / to-be-verified entries

• Whether "Meng Wah Complex" (明华综合大楼) and "Meng Wah Building" (蒙民伟楼) are two names for the same building: the official HKU Giving page plainly records the Meng Wah Complex as donated by Mr. Wong Tze Ming and his wife and opened in 1995; a separate "Meng Wah Building" (蒙民伟楼) attribution circulates informally. The table presents both, deferring to the official page, with the "Meng Wah" attribution marked to be verified pending a source.
• Full donor list and gift amounts for Robert Black College: public accounts mention Sir Tang Shiu-kin among others; the complete list and figures require consultation of the University's donation archives, see ../08-finances/benefactors-and-donors.md.
• Exact opening date of Robert Black College: Wikipedia records "opened by the Vice-Chancellor in January 1967"; the precise date is subject to University archives.
• Exact floor count of the Knowles Building: sources differ slightly (10 or 12 storeys); this article follows Docomomo's 12-storey count and does not force a single figure.
• Some teaching and research buildings (e.g. recent faculty buildings of the professional schools) are not individually listed: this table is confined to principal landmarks and core teaching and research blocks, and is not exhaustive of all HKU buildings; it may be expanded as needed.

---