$13 million new donation from Joy and Peter Lo to university art museum follows their earlier $20 million gift to school

Joy Lo and Peter Lo donated $13 million to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to expand its art museum to help strengthen the city’s status as a hub for cultural exchanges.

The 19,052 sq ft extension, set to open next month, was funded by the Lo Kwee Seong Foundation, whose eponymous founder started the beverage business Vitasoy in 1940, before his family went on to launch fast food chains Cafe de Coral and Fairwood.

“Universities are important melting pots for academic exchanges,” foundation chairman Peter Lo Tak-shing said.

“Museums elsewhere might have their own agendas and policies, but one that is grounded in academia can bring research, curation and promotion together, and will be more neutral.”

He hoped that the addition to the museum could become part of the fabric of Hong Kong’s arts ecosystem and contribute to the city serving as an East-meets-West center for international cultural exchanges.

“It’s a cross-discipline space and not just one for arts and humanities students, but also those who are in scientific research,” he added.

The Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion houses the Harold and Christina Lee Gallery, which was made possible by a donation from the family behind the Lee Gardens shopping malls in Causeway Bay.

The extension also includes a cafe, bookshop and rooftop, as well as artists’ studios.

The Lo family’s ties to the museum date back to 1979, when Lo Kwee-seong loaned items for the museum’s first teapot exhibition.

His collection later formed much of the basis for the government’s Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, which launched in 1984.

“The [collaboration] widened the community support,” said Joy Lo Cheung, foundation grants chairwoman and trustee.

“Today, it’s not just the collection. The university also has the expertise to develop scholarship research, and now with the digital media, it could widen the reach to international audiences.”

Lo also said that as an important academic institution, the university could focus on restoring fragile works such as calligraphy and dedicating the pavilion to training future scholars and curators to lead the city’s art and museum sector.

Through customized programs, the museum could educate students and collaborate with other local institutions, in addition to engaging with international audiences through travelling digital-media exhibitions, she said.

Professor Josh Yiu Chun-chong, the museum’s director, said the pavilion was not just a space for displaying art.

“We have envisioned it as the nexus of mindfulness and cultural activities on campus, whereby students and the university community connect with one another through a shared appreciation of creative and meaningful expressions,” he said.

Foundation chairman Peter Lo said: “The public or even tourists will sometimes come to the university, especially when mainland visitors prefer in-depth cultural tourism.

“If there is an open art exhibition space, it can connect the university with the society.”

The new pavilion will open on March 22, with the first exhibition to involve a collaboration with the Shanghai Museum and other prominent collections.

Director Yiu called it the local museum’s most ambitious show to date.

The event will feature 195 exhibits showcasing the elegant lifestyle of the affluent literati in the Jiangnan region from the 1560s to 1670s, despite political instability and the dynastic change from the Ming to Qing emperors.

In 2020, the foundation donated $20 million to the university for what later became the Lo Kwee Seong Integrated Biomedical Sciences Building, which promotes cross-discipline research focusing on agriculture.