Among the most overlooked parts of any building, and as essential to the structure as foundations, walls or roof, are the floors, and the various materials used to make them.
During urban Hong Kong’s formative decades, the poorest homes, as in other parts of the world, had earthen floors. These were constantly swept and gradually pounded down by decades of the passage of (usually bare) feet. Consequently, a well-laid earthen floor, kept polished smooth to deter insects and other domestic vermin, was almost as hard as cement. Mats made from reeds, rushes, or split bamboo were used as floor coverings.
Earthen floors remained commonplace in remote corners of the New Territories into the 1950s; by the end of that decade, concrete flooring, often laid courtesy of free bags of cement, granted to impoverished villagers by organisations such as Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association, had replaced them in most locations.
Local production of Portland cement, from the late 19th century, enabled these practical improvements. Green Island Cement began operations in Macau in 1886; another cement factory opened in Hung Hom in 1898. These constantly smoking lime kilns burned locally dredged coral and other imported sources of raw limestone, to make cement. Local air quality deterioration caused by this heavily polluting industry, along with hot smuts and other nuisances, provided a constant supply of Letters to the Editor complaints for decades.
Inevitably, a significant upside arose from the cement factory’s presence in Kowloon; locally produced cement dramatically reduced end-user costs which, in turn, rapidly expanded its use, especially for the purpose of flooring.
Another local industry developed as a direct result of cheap, readily available Portland cement: encaustic glazed floor tile production. English cement manufacturer Joseph Aspdin, who obtained the patent for Portland cement in 1824, also devised an early hydraulic press (typically operated manually by four workers) that produced these items.
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Aspin’s innovation revolutionised flooring globally; by the early 20th century, these tiles were found all over the world. Locally manufactured wherever a ready supply of competitively priced Portland cement could be sourced – such as in Hong Kong – they also provided an additional export industry. Decorative and hard-wearing, encaustic floor tile blanks were printed in various patterns and colours, and then glazed. These remained widespread until about 1950; less economically advanced countries, such as Spain and Portugal, used these materials into the 1970s.
Like much else lost through redevelopment, these heritage floor tiles were once almost too ubiquitous to merit attention. Surviving high-quality examples can still be seen in Hong Kong, if one knows where to look. External corridor floors at the Main Building of Hong Kong University, built between 1910 and 1912, and the nearby Museum of Medical Sciences, in Mid-Levels, originally built as a government bacteriological institute in 1906, have well preserved tile floors that have borne up well over many decades of constant wear.
Even more popular than encaustic tiles – mainly because they were even cheaper to produce – polished concrete floors became commonplace in domestic settings across Asia by the 1920s. Various chemical colourants were applied to the cement surface during the initial polishing process, which helped enliven otherwise drab grey interior floors. In Hong Kong, and elsewhere in tropical Asia, red oxide (generally incorporated into proprietary brands of floor polish) imparted a deep mahogany red sheen to polished concrete floors. Care was needed; the colour would come off on socks or bare feet if not properly dry – this periodic nuisance remains a much-remembered detail of many local childhoods.
Red oxide polish was also practical; the compound discouraged certain insect pests from coming up through cracks in the cement floor – in particular, white ants and termites – which would then silently find their way into wooden furniture, with potentially catastrophic results when it was finally hollowed out.
