ABSTRACT
Hong Kong Protestant churches are mostly located in ‘unusual’ places in urban areas. The common notion of church usually refers to stand-alone buildings, such as cathedrals, which ‘look like’ churches. According to a recent survey, however, stand-alone churches represent only a little more than one-eighth of the total number of Protestant churches in Hong Kong (Wu and Fok, 2005, pp. 8–9). In contrast, over half (659 out of 1,181) of the churches are located inside commercial and residential buildings. They reside in units of buildings not because of theological beliefs or governmental intervention, but simply because of the scarcity of land in the city. As they were set up in the post- war period, it was practically impossible for them to secure land for building stand-alone churches. They could only construct their sacred space in upper floors units which had been built for residential or business uses, and thus are sometimes dubbed ‘upper-floor churches’ (loushang jiaohui) or ‘first-floor churches’ (erlou jiaohui). Unlike those buildings that have been erected specifically for religious use or those located in schools and social service centres, these ‘upper-floor churches’ are not easily recognizable in the urban landscape.
