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Named Buildings and Benefactor Families — From the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building to the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village

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Walk across CityU's campus and behind almost every building name stands a donor: the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, the Run Run Shaw Library, Lee Shau Kee residences… The tradition of "naming after the donor" is at once a tribute to generosity and part of the University's fundraising machinery. This article traces the lineage of building naming at CityU and profiles its representative benefactor families. For the complete register of individual donors (covering the four categories of named objects — chairs, halls, colleges and buildings), see the sister article benefactors-and-donors.md; for the overall scale of the endowment and related finances, see finances.md and endowment-campaigns-and-matching-grants.md.

1. Why Do Universities "Sell Naming Rights"

A "naming gift" is a fundraising mechanism common to universities worldwide: a donor funds a building, a chair professorship, or a fund, and the University names it after them in commemoration. The arrangement benefits both sides — for the University, it is a stable source of substantial funding; for the donor, lasting recognition and influence. CityU is a public university that nonetheless must raise a significant share of its own resources (government grants + tuition + donations + investment returns; see finances.md), making naming gifts an important part of broadening its funding base.

The University operates a dedicated Endowment mechanism (CityU giving page) that systematically channels support of all kinds.

2. The Yeung Kin Man Academic Building: The Campus's "Founding-era" Building

One of CityU's earliest core teaching buildings is the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building. According to public sources, it was originally known as "Academic 1", constructed in phases between 1989 and 1994 — a period that neatly spans the key years from the City Polytechnic's move to Tat Chee Avenue (1990) through to its upgrading to university status (1994/1995) (for the founding story, see polytechnic-founding-story.md).

The building was later named after the donor Yeung Kin Man; CityU also established the Yeung Kin Man Chair Professor of Biomedical Sciences and other chairs bearing his name, pointing to a long-term and multi-layered giving relationship (the full list of five named chairs appears in benefactors-and-donors.md). As one of CityU's earliest academic buildings, the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building counts as a "founding-era" landmark, having witnessed the University's beginnings and its rise to full university status.

3. Lee Shau Kee: Two Decades of Sustained Support

Lee Shau Kee, founder of Henderson Land Development, is among CityU's most representative donors of recent years. According to CityU's official release and Henderson Land:

With support spanning nearly two decades (2006→2024), the name "Lee Shau Kee" now appears in multiple places across CityU's campus — from the Kowloon Tong halls to the Ma On Shan village — and offers the clearest example of the University's fundraising mechanism at work: the same donor's name can appear simultaneously on a building, a hall, and a chair.

4. Run Run Shaw: The Media Mogul-Philanthropist Who Left His Mark Everywhere

Run Run Shaw and the Shaw Foundation are another donor "ubiquitous" on the CityU campus. Facilities named after him include at least:

  • The Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre: funded by a HK$100 million donation from the Shaw Foundation, opened in 2011;
  • The Run Run Shaw Library: the University's main library, founded in 1984 and named in 1990 following a major donation from Sir Run Run Shaw.

Run Run Shaw's philanthropy extended to universities across mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan; "Run Run Shaw buildings/libraries/science centres" can be found on campus after campus. CityU is just one stop in his charitable map.

CityU's tallest building — the 20-storey tower plus 5-storey podium formerly known as Academic 3 — is named after donor Lau Ming Wai as the "Lau Ming Wai Academic Building". The exact size of the naming donation has not been officially disclosed. What makes this building interesting is that it carries a second name "nested" within it: on the 18th floor sits CityU's flagship art exhibition space, named the "Indra and Harry Banga Gallery" on 5 November 2019 in appreciation of the generous support of Mr. Harry Banga and his wife Mrs. Indra Banga — a date that coincided with the 25th anniversary of CityU's designation as a university. Mr. Banga is the founder, Chairman and CEO of The Caravel Group; the official press release describes him as the first "mega donor" to support CityU from an international background, reflecting that CityU's donor base is by no means limited to local Chinese families.

Another academic building named after a donor couple is the one designed by the architectural firm Aedas and formerly known as Academic 2 — the "Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin Academic Building", named after the couple Li Dak Sum and Yip Yio Chin. Three academic buildings (Yeung Kin Man, Lau Ming Wai, and Li Dak Sum Yip Yio Chin) plus the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre form the four core named landmarks of the main teaching quarter. No official public figures exist for any of these four individual donations, consistent with CityU's customary practice — as with most of the donors discussed above — of not disclosing amounts for naming gifts. For a detailed look at the architecture and floor functions of the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, see yeung-kin-man-academic-building-p-block.md; for an overview of campus buildings, see buildings-landmarks.md.

6. The Ryoden Hu Family: One Sports Centre and Three "Hu" Chairs

The Hu Fa Kuang Sports Centre is named after Dr. Hu Fa Kuang, founder of Ryoden Development. It reopened on 27 May 2026, featuring the largest single-level sports hall among Hong Kong universities, squash courts for doubles play, and an all-weather indoor running track. Among the buildings covered in this article, this is the most recently completed — barely a month before the time of writing — a reminder that naming gifts are not a relic of CityU's past but a mechanism very much alive today.

The Hu family's giving extends beyond the sports centre. Through the Ryoden Development Charitable Trust, the vehicle for the family's donations, CityU has established three named chairs: the Hu Shao-ming (Herman Hu) Chair Professorship in Nanomaterials — named after Hu Fa Kuang's eldest son and Ryoden Development's chairman Herman Hu Shao-ming, GBS, JP, currently held by Professor Zhang Hua; the Raymond Hu Professorship in Architecture — named after Hu Fa Kuang's younger son, Ryoden's Deputy Chairman and Managing Director; and the Jeanie Hu Professorship in Biomedical Sciences — named after Herman Hu's wife. Herman Hu served on the CityU Council for more than 14 years, making this "building + chairs" package a rare case in which the donor has also been deeply involved in the University's governance. No donation figures have been officially disclosed.

A note on names: Hall 9 in CityU's main Kowloon Tong campus, "Sir Gordon and Lady Ivy Wu Hall", is named after Sir Gordon Wu (founder of Hopewell Holdings) and his wife — a different Hu/Wu family from the Hu Fa Kuang / Herman Hu (Ryoden Development) family above. The two are often confused because both names are romanised as "Hu" or "Wu".

7. Mong Man-wai and the Shun Hing Group: A Three-Decade Fund Beyond the Building

The Mong Man-wai Building is named after Dr. Mong Man-wai, founder of the Shun Hing Group. Unlike the one-off naming donations above, the Mong family's giving is closer to an enduring institution: the Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund, established in 1984 by the late philanthropist Mong Man-wai, has donated more than HK$1.3 billion in total over three decades, with CityU being only one of many beneficiaries. At CityU the Fund supports two named chairs — the Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund Professor of Engineering (currently held by Professor Guanrong Chen) and the Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund Professor of Energy and Environment. The naming donation for the Mong Man-wai Building itself has no official public figure, but the Fund's cumulative HK$1.3 billion-plus over more than thirty years is one of the few verifiable family-fund totals in this article. It makes an instructive contrast with the Lee Shau Kee / Yeung Kin Man pattern of "individual amounts undisclosed, but names spread across many categories": one lets you see the total but not any single gift; the other lets you see the density of naming but no figures at all.

8. The Hong Kong Jockey Club: The Largest Single Donation in CityU's History

If the donors above represent "individual and family philanthropy", the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust represents institutional philanthropy on a different scale — and it is the only donor in this article for whom an exact public figure exists, and the largest such figure at that.

The Jockey Club case deserves its own section because it breaks the "no official public figure" refrain that recurs throughout this article — a useful reminder that CityU does not keep every donation under wraps. Institutional donors, especially where large-scale construction and accountability-transparency are involved, tend to be more willing than individuals or families to disclose specific amounts.

9. Dr. Chow Yei Ching: A Graduate School Built on "the Largest Donation in CityU's History"

The School of Graduate Studies is named the "Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies" in honour of Dr. Chow Yei Ching. CityU issued a naming press release on 12 April 2007, in which then-President H. K. Chang described Chow's donation as "the largest in CityU's history", prompting the University to name the School after him.

What makes this case worth noting is the mismatch between rhetoric and figures: the press release used categorical language — "the largest donation in CityU's history" — yet gave no specific amount. Ten years later (2017), by contrast, the Jockey Club's HK$500 million gift was announced with the exact figure stated outright. Read side by side, the two cases show that CityU has no uniform disclosure policy for donation amounts; whether a figure appears depends on the individual donor's or institution's consent. Readers should not read "undisclosed" as "small".

10. Other Named Buildings at a Glance

Several other campus buildings carry donor names, confirmed by the University's campus information, though no official public figures exist for any individual naming donation:

Building English name Naming source (per University data)
方润华楼 Fong Yun-wah Building donor Fong Yun-wah
郑翼之楼 Cheng Yick-chi Building donor Cheng Yick-chi
到源楼 To Yuen Building naming basis unverifiable (function or donor uncertain)

The three buildings in this table differ from everything discussed above in one key respect: the University's official pages provide no detailed account of the donors' backgrounds, the year of the gift, or — in the case of To Yuen Building — even the basis for the name itself. All that remains is the bare correspondence between building and name. The lesson for readers: not every named building at CityU can be traced back to a press release or a naming ceremony. The older the building and the smaller the gift, the thinner the public record tends to be. This archive records "unverifiable" as such rather than speculating; for the complete master table of individual donors and named chairs, see sections 5 and 7 of benefactors-and-donors.md.

11. The Naming Tradition: Two Sides of the Coin

12. Why Building Names Belong in the Finance Module

University donations show up not only on the balance sheet but on the campus map. The Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village, the Run Run Shaw facilities, the Jockey Club's named projects — all of them turn a giving relationship into space that students walk through every day. For CityU, building names are a visible history of finance: they show that campus expansion, residences, faculties and public facilities typically depend on a combination of government funding, self-raised resources and private philanthropy. Reading the name on a building means asking three questions: the money (amount, year, purpose), the name (what kind of naming it bought), and the use (does it ultimately serve teaching, housing, research, or student support) — look only at the donor list and you miss how the University deploys its resources; look only at the building names and you miss the money trail. As a compact urban campus, CityU's physical expansion and residence-building are especially reliant on clear financial arrangements, and named projects from the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village to the Yeung Kin Man Academic Building should be read against the backdrop of campus development and student capacity.

Donation history also needs to be cross-checked against campus history: the 05-campus/ module records building locations, functions and spatial use, while this article records naming and financial lineage. Where a building's name, opening year or function appears inconsistent between the two modules, the University's press releases, annual reports and building pages take precedence for correction — which also guards against a common error: treating a building name as a mere honour while forgetting that it serves a concrete student purpose. A named hall affects housing supply, a named academic building affects teaching space, a named library or gallery affects public culture. A donation is not just money; it is part of the fabric of the campus.

13. Summary

  • CityU follows the internationally common naming gift mechanism, naming buildings, chairs and funds after donors — a key element of its fundraising and resource development.
  • The Yeung Kin Man Academic Building (formerly Academic 1, built in phases 1989–1994) is the "founding-era" teaching building, having witnessed CityU's beginnings and its rise to university status.
  • Lee Shau Kee has supported CityU continuously since 2006, with a major donation in 2018; both Hall 6 and the Ma On Shan residence village bear his name, making him the single donor spanning the most categories ("building + hall + chair").
  • Run Run Shaw and the Shaw Foundation's named facilities (the Creative Media Centre, the Library, etc.) are spread across campus; Lau Ming Wai and the Banga couple together left two names on a single building (academic building + gallery).
  • The Ryoden Hu family (sports centre + three chairs) and the Shun Hing Mong family (teaching building + two chairs, cumulatively over HK$1.3 billion in more than three decades) represent the alternative model of "a family fund run as an ongoing institution".
  • The Hong Kong Jockey Club's HK$500 million gift is the largest single donation in CityU's history and the only case in this article with an exact public figure; the Chow Yei Ching donation, by contrast, was officially described as "the largest in CityU's history" without a figure ever being disclosed. Read together, the two cases show that CityU has no uniform policy on disclosing donation amounts.
  • The naming mechanism has both benefits and drawbacks; this archive presents the facts without judging individual cases.

Sources

Cross-references

Note on the Merger and Split of This Article

This article was formerly card 08-finances/building-naming-and-benefactors.md, merged into benefactors-and-donors.md; it was split out as a standalone piece on 2026-07-02 because the parent card had grown too long. Content and sources remain unchanged; repeated meta passages such as "update standards" and "how to read" have been consolidated and trimmed to avoid duplication with the parent card.

Future Update Criteria

Donation and naming information must be handled with care. Material that may be included directly: university press releases, annual reports, foundation announcements, government or UGC documents, building opening information, and reliable media coverage. If only a building's name is known, without the donation amount, year, or agreement terms, write only that it is "named after — person/institution" and do not infer the terms of the gift. Where disputes involve living donors or their families, do not expand without reliable sources.

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