Abstract: The public space at museums, theatres, or cultural centres overlaps with everyday urban space, but it possesses a different quality than the nominal public streets or plazas. Through spatial design and operation, the exterior and interior public spaces associated with cultural buildings are carefully curated to manifest the cultural institution’s vision and value, which is described as institutional cultural space in this dissertation. Cultural and spatial production is inseparable from economic and urban development, especially in late capitalistic cities such as Hong Kong, where public and private interest is often found to be in the opposite position. How does the design of cultural space reflect institutional intention in response to different developmental forces? Furthermore, the cultural centre as a public institution is inhabited by a spectrum of public participants, involved in various activities that contribute to the production of cultural space. How do they react to the institutional and capitalistic influence through intended or unintended cultural practices?

PhD dissertation. 2023 (unpublished)