The Macau government is proposing to list six more properties in the city as officially-protected cultural heritage sites, including the Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial House, the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) announced yesterday.
The Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial House is said to be owned by a Kuomintang-linked company registered in Singapore.
The six proposed properties announced yesterday are among the fourth batch of the bureau’s cultural heritage evaluations of immovable properties, since the Cultural Heritage Protection Law came into force in March 2014.
The bureau announced details about the six properties during a press conference in its premises in Praça do Tap Seac, which was hosted by IC President Leong Wai Man, Choi Kin Long, who heads the bureau’s Cultural Heritage Department, and Choi Cheng Cheng, an official of the bureau.
159 heritage sites now
Currently, Macau has 159 officially-listed cultural heritage sites. Since 1992, when Macau was still under Portuguese administration, there had been 128 cultural heritage sites in the city, and no new properties had been newly listed as cultural heritage sites, before the current Cultural Heritage Protection Law took effect in 2014.
After the Cultural Heritage Protection Law took effect, the Cultural Affairs Bureau started to launch cultural heritage evaluations, in batches, of immovable properties in the city that were not officially listed as cultural heritage sites but with cultural, historic or architectural value.
Nine properties were newly listed as cultural heritage sites in 2017 after the bureau’s first batch of cultural heritage evaluations of immovable properties, while nine additional properties were classified as cultural heritage sites in 2019 in the second batch. In addition, the bureau also classified the Lai Chi Vun shipyards area in Coloane as a cultural heritage site in 2018.
Moreover, the bureau listed 12 more properties as cultural heritage sites in 2021 in the third batch.
Consequently, since the Cultural Heritage Protection Law took effect in 2014, 31 properties have been newly listed as officially-protected cultural heritage sites, raising the number from 128 to 159.
During yesterday’s press conference, Leong pointed out that Macau already had 128 official cultural heritage sites before the Cultural Heritage Protection Law took effect, adding that there are currently 159 cultural heritage sites in the city after the 31 additional immovable properties were listed in the bureau’s first three batches of cultural heritage evaluations.
The bureau launched a two-month public consultation yesterday on its cultural heritage evaluations of the six newly proposed properties, i.e., the fourth batch. The public consultation will end on 14 May.
Three public sessions will be held during the 60-day consultation period.
According to the Cultural Heritage Protection Law, the cultural heritage assessment of a particular property has to be completed within a year of the process getting off the ground.
According to the law, the government is also required to consult the Cultural Heritage Council on the cultural heritage evaluations of immovable properties, in addition to a public consultation.
After the evaluation process, the government will decide whether the six proposed properties will be officially classified as cultural heritage sites.
Details in Chinese and Portuguese on the six proposed properties can be checked at: https://www.culturalheritage.mo/detail/102663
The six proposed properties comprise 1) Chio Family Mansion, 2) 12 buildings at Nos. 55-73 Avenida do Coronel Mesquita, and Nos. 118-120 Estrada de Coelho do Amaral, 3) four buildings Nos. 28-30 and Nos. 34-36 Avenida do Coronel Mesquita, plus Nos. 151-157 Rua de Francisco Xavier Pereira, 4) House at No. 1 Rua de Silva Mendes (the Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial House), 5) the former slaughterhouse at Barra (Inner Harbour Entrance), and 6) a former public health station on the waterfront near Coloane Village, which is now used as a customs post.
Chio Family Mansion is located in an alley near the S. Domingos wet market.
According to the public consultation document, 10 of the 12 buildings at the junction of Avenida do Coronel Mesquita and Estrada de Coelho do Amaral are now used as facilities for cultural activities, while one of the four buildings at the junction of Avenida do Coronel Mesquita and Rua de Francisco Xavier Pereira is housing the bureau’s Xian Xinghai Memorial Museum.
This photo taken yesterday shows the Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial House.
– Photo: Tony Wong
