Research on the Reuse of Wharf Heritage from the Perspective of

Cultural Fusion: A Case Study of the Abandoned Lai Chi Van

Shipyard in Coloane, Macao

Minghao Li

Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macao University of Science and Technology, 99078, Macao, China

Keywords: Cultural Fusion, Industrial Heritage, Wharf Heritage, Lai Chi Vun Shipyard.

Abstracts: Cultural fusion refers to the process of multiple cultures and features fusing into a new culture. It emphasizes

the mutual infiltration among different cultures. Macao, as a city formed by immigrants from different

countries, ethnicities and regions, has a quite complicated and diverse culture. As people are getting more

concerned about the protective reuse of industrial heritage, the protection of heritage sites and the tourism

development based on them has become the top priorities for Macao if the city wants to develop its cultural

and tourism industries.

In this paper, research was conducted on the protective reuse of an industrial heritage site, Lai Chi Vun

Shipyard in Coloane, Macao. Guided by culture and tourism development, the adaptive reuse of wharf

heritage not only requires us to update the “hardware”, but also to reproduce and create the former scenes.

The goal is to create a unique and ecological waterfront life mode with wharf heritage. At the same time, the

city language with Macao’s characteristic has to be put into use. Taking full advantage of the actual functions

of scenes and spaces recreating, we are bound to bring out the city’s characteristics and vitality.

1 INTRODUCTION

Wharfs are important transportation hubs for Macao.

Areas around the wharfs are bestowed with abundant

natural resources and supreme geographical

locations. Towns located along rivers can transport

their cargo through boats. Therefore, towns and cities

tend to develop around wharfs. A city’s culture also

has its root in wharfs. The wharf landscape plays an

important role in exhibiting the characteristic

landscape of the city. (Ge 2015) Nowadays Macao

has no shipbuilding industry. So how to protect and

renew the heritage culture carried by Lai Chi Vun

Shipyard has become a top priority. With research

methods like literature review and interviews, and

taking Lai Chi Vun Shipyard as an example, the

author of this paper explores new ways of existence

for today’s old shipyards, with an aim to develop

cultural tourism and form new economic drivers. The

new ways to develop and reuse wharf heritage in the

post-industrial era is also under discussion.

2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

OF LAI CHI VUN SHIPYARD IN

COLOANE, MACAO

2.1 Historical Background of the City

Macao

As a harbor city with a history of over 400 years,

Macao has always been closely related to the sea.

Macao’s culture integrates the education, customs

and ethnics from both the east and the west. It is an

inheritor of both the Han culture from the east, and

the Portuguese culture from the west. Besides, Macao

has also been influenced by various ethnic cultures,

ranging from Spain, Netherlands, and England in the

west, to Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and

Vietnam from the east. (Hou 2019) If we trace back

to the 1950s, we will find that most children who

were born and raised in Macao, knew they were likely

to become fishermen and shipbuilders when they

grew up. At that time, fishing and shipbuilding are

still at their prime time. In this small town lives nearly

10,000 fishermen and sits more than 30 large

shipyards. Coastal villages at that time were full of

712

Li, M.

Research on the Reuse of Wharf Heritage from the Perspective of Cultural Fusion: A Case Study of the Abandoned Lai Chi Van Shipyard in Coloane, Macao.

DOI: 10.5220/0011756200003607

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology (ICPDI 2022), pages 712-717

ISBN: 978-989-758-620-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

hustle and bustle, for the sea has abundant fishing

resources, especially fish, crabs and oysters.

(bbc.com 2015)

2.2 Historical Background of Lai Chi

Vun Shipyard

Lai Chi Vun Village is located in the southwest of

Coloane Island, Macao. It is one of the existing old

villages in Coloane. Lai Chi Vun Road begins from

the wharf front at the south, and ends at the

intersection of Shek Pai Wan Road and R. de Entre-

Campos at the north. Cottages and shipyards are built

along the hillside in an orderly manner, facing the sea.

(See Figure 1) A small bay named “Lai Chi Vun”

resides in the west of the village. Lai Chi Vun is a

naturally formed bay with a bowl shape. It is said that

in the past, countless lychee trees were planted inside

the bay, so people name it “Lai Chi Vun”, which

means “a bowl full of lychees” in Cantonese. Another

explanation being in the past, there were black

soldiers stationed in this place. They brought with

them sugar-apples, which were later planted in the

bay. Sugar-apple is also called “foreign lychee” in

Cantonese, which is why they named the place “Lai

Chi Vun.” As for when the village was first built,

historical records was nowhere to be found. However,

in the late 19

century, when China and Portugal

were settling their demarcation issue, the name of the

village appeared several times in relevant historical

materials. During this period, Lai Chi Vun was at the

frontline of Portugal’s border expansion. In 1864, a

detachment composed of ten Portuguese policemen

were stationed in the village and establish a military

base there. Lai Chi Vun was gradually put under the

jurisdiction of Portuguese Macao.

Figure 1: In 1995, a traditional Chinese schooner is sailing

towards Macao. (Source: Horace Bristol/ Getty).

In 2005, the last ship in Macao was built by the

city’s only remaining shipyard, Lai Chi Vun

Shipyard. This once-booming shipbuilding center has

manufactured many types of ships, such as shrimp

trawlers with huge fan-shaped sails, and slim-body

teakwood dragon boats. But now, inside the once

bustling shipbuilding workshop, all you can see are

rusty construction materials, and some rubbish that

got washed up on the shore, as well as some

abandoned boats. (See Figure 2)

Figure 2: The history carried by the now abandoned Lai Chi

Vun Shipyard is gradually fading away.

3 THE NECESSITY TO REUSE

LAI CHI VUN SHIPYARD

The shipbuilding industry of Macao has a long

history as the city’s fishing industry. From the

remains of Lai Chi Vun Shipyard in today’s Coloane,

we can vaguely sense the prosperity of trade in the

area in old times. The busy maritime trade also

promoted the shipbuilding industry in Macao,

enabling the shipbuilding technology to reach an

extremely high level in the world. Ships built in

Macao at that time has a complete set of functions and

models, ranging from simple, tiny net casting boats to

large-scale electromechanical ships. In the early

1980s, with the decline of inner-harbor shipbuilding

industry and the re-planning and construction of road

network by the Macao government, the current area

from Lam Mau Tong to Fai Chi Kei gradually took

shape. In the 1960s, as stipulated by the government,

all the shipyards in Macao were relocated to the

northwest of Lai Chi Vun. At present, only Lai Chi

Vun Shipyard remains operational in the city. The

shipyard has become the only remaining large-scale

shipyard in Macao, and the only large-scale

shipbuilding industry heritage site in Southern China.

As the carrier of shipbuilding technology, Lai Chi

Vun Shipyard has been a witness to the evolution of

the local industries. In the meantime, the changes in

people’s lifestyle and village forms of Lai Chi Vun

with the rise of the local shipbuilding industry also

Research on the Reuse of Wharf Heritage from the Perspective of Cultural Fusion: A Case Study of the Abandoned Lai Chi Van Shipyard in

Coloane, Macao

713

witnessed the development course of Macao in old

times and the situations of the local shipbuilding

industry at that time, demonstrating the changing

lives of shipbuilders. (aaMacao.com 2016) As a

representative of Macao’s cultural heritage, Lai Chi

Vun Shipyard is also the epitome of Macao’s city

spirit. As being said by Oswald Spengler: “What

differentiates a city from a village is not its scope and

scale, but its inherent city spirit.” (Spengler 1988)

Today’s informative and unique cultural heritage is

the witness to and the recorder of the inclusiveness

and cohesion of Macao’s society for the past 400

years. To protect Macao’s cultural heritage, not only

should we protect every inch of its historical

buildings (endogenous driver), but also allow more

people to understand and take part in this movements

(exogenous driver). Only in this way can we prevent

Macao’s city spirit and historical culture from being

buried by the progress of history, and inject new and

long-lasting vitality in the city.

4 RESEARCHES ON THE REUSE

OF LAI CHI VUN SHIPYARD

4.1 Relevant Policies

In “The Outline of the Plan for the Reform and

Development of the Pearl River Delta (2008-2020)”

issued in 2008, the National Development and

Reform Commission (NDRC) of China first proposed

the goal of building Macao into a world-class tourism

and leisure center, in the hope of developing

Coloane’s tourism industry. In 2013, the Macao

government put forward a protective development

plan for the shipyard’s remains, proposing that the

shipyard in Lai Chi Vun should be converted into

exhibition halls and leisure facilities in order to

inform the citizens and tourists of the history of

Coloane Village and Macao’s shipbuilding industry.

On July 1

, 2017, President Xi Jinping attended the

signing ceremony of the Framework Agreement on

Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao

Cooperation in the Development of the Bay Area. On

October 24

, 2018, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao

Bridge was officially opened to the public. On

February 18

, 2019, along with the Central

Committee of the Communist Party of China, the

State Council issued the “Outline Development Plan

for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay

Area.” The issue of policies and the launching of new

transportation routes provide strong impetus for in-

depth cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong

and Macao in political, economic and other realms,

and also lay a solid foundation for the fusion between

different cultures. In June 2020, five Chinese

ministries and commissions, including the NDRC

and the Ministry of Industry and Information

Technology, jointly formulated the “Implementation

Plan for Promoting Industrial Heritage Protection and

Utilization in Traditional Industrial Cities”, requiring

all local regions must “fully understand that besides

material forms, we should also pay attention to the

institutional and spiritual forms of industrial heritage,

with the latter two being the distinctions

differentiating industrial heritage from other natural

and cultural relics. (Zhang 2020) Basic principles

such as “protection first, and utilizing in order to

protect” was clarified for developing industrial

heritage. Urban living spaces integrating collective

memory, knowledge dissemination, creative culture,

and leisure services will be protected and created, so

that the city’s historical connotations can be passed

on to the next generation.

4.2 Current Challenges

Through the current research, besides the potential

and opportunities for development, Lai Chi Vun is

now facing the following challenges:

1) Due to the long-term absence of shipyard shed

maintenance and renovations, there exists

some hidden hazards, endangering public

safety and health.

2) The shipyard was built centuries ago. The

remaining infrastructure obviously can no

longer satisfy the needs of modern people.

There isn’t enough space for public activity

and parking.

3) The scenery is not tidy, posing negative effects

to the overall urban landscape.

4) Coloane’s terrain is not suitable for building

infrastructure. With extensive hills and small

flat grounds, the area is not equipped for

construction.

4.3 Concrete Measures for Shipyard

Reuse

By surveying and mapping Lai Chi Vun Shipyard in

Coloane and conducting research on the surrounding

environment and infrastructure, the author of this

paper identified such four functions for the shipyard

as demonstrating the development history of

shipbuilding industry in Macao, preserving

shipbuilding memory and culture, and developing

cultural creativity industries, comprehensive

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714

exhibition centers, as well as education, leisure and

entertainment. We have designed two steps for this

research.

Step 1: In this paper, the author conducted an

online questionnaire to investigate the citizens’

intentions on how to reuse Macao’s Lai Chi Vun

Shipyard. A total of 205 questionnaires have been

retrieved, all of which turned out to be valid. The

majority of the questionnaires were filled out by

young and middle-aged people with relatively high

educational levels. Therefore, the questionnaires we

received were proved to have strong reference values.

By analyzing the data, we collected from the

questionnaires, we drew Table 3 and reached the

following conclusions: 1) The main challenge we are

now facing in the protection and development of Lai

Chi Vun Shipyard is the lack of unified and complete

planning, the absence of which has hindered the

shipyard’s development. 2) People know little about

the shipyard, especially its historical background and

the culture behind it. 3) However, most people still

believe that Lai Chi Vun Shipyard has important

economic and culture values, and it is necessary to

take appropriate measures to protect it and

innovatively develop modern ways of utilization.

Most respondents were in favor of cultural and

creative tourism, and the idea of turning Lai Chi Vun

Shipyard into a demonstration area for modernized

integration of culture and tourism.

Step 2: Analyze the resources and urban planning

of the surrounding area. Macao’s industrial heritage

is significantly different from that of other regions.

With few cultural resources, the small city generates

most of its revenue by selling handcrafts. The future

planning of Macao heavily relies on its tertiary

industry, mainly the tourism industry. In the

government’s plan, Coloane has designed urban

planning and protection with downtown areas of Rua

de Cinco de Outubro, Rua dos Navegantes, Travessa

da Cordoaria, Avenida da República as the core. Lai

Chi Vun Shipyard locates at the proximity of

residential areas for local villagers, where

architecture of buildings integrates various styles

such as Portuguese classicism and the Chinese

traditional styles. Examples can be seen in Chinese

Table 1: Descriptive analysis of data collected on local residents’ attitude towards the reuse of lai chi vun shipyard.

Features Variables Frequency

Percentage

(%)

Features Variables Frequency

Percentage

(%)

Age

16-35 20 9.8%

Inhabitant

Downtown 60 29.3%

36-55 140 68.2% Taipa 40 19.5%

Over 56 45 22% Coloane 35 17.1%

Others 70 34.1%

Educational

level

Junior high

school or below

30 14.6%

Value

Economic 145 70.7%

Senior high

school

70 34.2% Cultural 150 73.2%

Undergraduate 80 39% Historical 130 63.4%

Post-graduate or

above

25 12.2% Other 50 24.4%

Very 40 19.6%

Necessity of

protection

Necessary 125 61%

Familiarity

with the

shipyar

Moderate 70 34.1% Moderate 70 34.1%

Hardly 95 46.3% Not necessary 10 4.9%

Should we

have unified

planning?

Yes 30 14.6%

Expectation

Improvement of

government

services

100 48.8%

No 125 61%

Environmental

improvement

planning

120 58.5%

N/A 50 24.4%

Higher social

management

level

130 63.4%

Cultural tourism

transformation

In favor of 180 87.8%

Inclusion of

cultural

creativity

150 73.2%

Against 25 12.2%

History

preservation in

the region

145 71%

Research on the Reuse of Wharf Heritage from the Perspective of Cultural Fusion: A Case Study of the Abandoned Lai Chi Van Shipyard in

Coloane, Macao

715

temples, Catholic churches, police stations, markets,

libraries, clinics, etc. As Macao vigorously develops

its cultural tourism, Lai Chi Vun region can take the

shipyard and fishing village as the base to promote

artistic activities and develop cultural creativity

industry. In the meantime, resources and planning of

the surrounding area should be integrated under the

overall planning of the city. As for the functions of

Lai Chi Vun Shipyard, on the one hand, we should

design supporting facilities for cultural tourism; on

the other hand, the shipyard should in some way

provide supplement for the local community culture.

For instance, surrounding environment, buildings and

abstract things like the history, culture, etc. can

change into creative ideas that are suitable for local

residents by combining “people, culture, land,

scenery, and industry”

In additions, shipyards and houseboats can be

preserved to set up multifunctional “cultural leisure

parks”, which will be operated under the principle of

“Towards cultural industrialization,” linking the

historical memories of the communities and

industries, so as to revitalize the local communities

and industries. In fact, as the new hope for Lai Chi

Vun’s revitalization, the local seamanship and

fishermen culture regeneration still have great

potential for development. Whether it is the story that

once happened in Lai Chi Vun, industrial culture, or

the cultural background of the local communities,

they are all precious tangible or intangible cultural

assets that certainly deserve preservation. Such

preservation includes the tasks of preserving,

regenerating and activating the cultural assets, and

the thoughts about the interaction between these

cultural assets and communities, with the goal of

further exploring the economic and cultural benefits

they can deliver.

It is a pity that Lai Chi Vun doesn’t have any

surrounding cultural industries. In the future, we can

set aside a broader cultural space during the planning

of Lai Chi Vun community, and in such process,

present the industrial significance and value of

cultural “preservation” and “regeneration.” When I

say preservation, I refer to the preservation, planning

and exhibition of the shipyard, seamanship, historical

architecture and monuments, and major fishing

equipment. As for regeneration, the facilities in the

surrounding area can be reused or expanded to

enhance their cultural benefits. During the planning

of Lai Chi Vun community, ideas like “Seamanship

Museum”, “Seamanship Culture and Creativity

Center”, “Seamanship Workshop”, “Art Market”,

“Fishermen Cultural Theater”, “Earth Art Fair” are

all excellent ideas.

5 CONCLUSIONS

For cities with scarce resources, tapping into

industrial heritage resources can form new economic

drivers, developing local economy and at the same

time, displaying and passing on the wisdom and

spirits in the history and culture of our ancestors. The

development of Macao Peninsula is restricted by its

small land area. Under this circumstance, revitalizing

the offshore islands serves as an inevitable trend in

Macao’s development. Facing the scarcity of tourism

resources, as we tap into new tourism resources in

Coloane, we should protect and reuse the existing

valuable industrial relics in Coloane, so that we can

embed the collective memories of the shipbuilding

industry in Macao’s history and culture, and pass

them from generation to generation. Therefore, “the

path of developing the city’s cultural creativity

industry, with low energy consumption, high cultural

values and high returns, is certainly suitable for

Macao.” (Wang 2013)

During the protection of Lai Chi Vun Shipyard,

besides protecting its historical relics, more

importantly, we should protect and develop the

cultural and environmental factors behind those

relics. As for protection, no more cultural buildings

should be built; instead, researches shall be

conducted to form balanced considerations. When

developing Lai Chi Vun’s creativity industry, we

should further exploit the historical and cultural

resources of related industries while refraining from

pursuing trivial matters, so as to provide more

directions for the sustainable development and the

reuse of Lai Chi Vun Shipyard.

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