Surveying the City
I have developed the habit of taking pictures of signage in Hong Kong, I remember having started this in semester 2? When Syed was our instructor.Â
I started off being very specific with documenting old buildings or structures, a part of Hong Kong I dearly relate to while growing up : old streets with what we call Tong Buildings, most of them well over 30 years old, no elevators and that most of them are under 8 stories high ; on the other hand there are the skyscrapers and new projects, LED covered walls with the glass reflecting everything around it, luxurious hotel and malls, the kind that would have one hesitate to enter when you are slightly under dressed.Â
The charms of Hong Kong as a city was the merge of the old and new, but that is slowly changing as the HKSAR government have their sights on development and would rather neglect, or do a very bad job in repurposing old structures and coming up with new projects.
Rant on City Development & Aesthetics
This city is known to be a financial hub, and that a long time friend of mine has pointed out an interesting fact that : nowhere else in the world would a city leader be titled Chief Executive, a term only used in a business/corperate setting, and that says alot about what kind of a city Hong Kong is.
The fact that the city is run like a business is shaping how things look, and in that there are examples of decisions that I think are out right baloney, take the Handover Memorial by the Wan Chai pier for example :
Some idiot (excuse me) decided to move the Comic Walk (originally located in Kowloon Park) right next to what is supposed to be a dignified piece dedicated to a meaningful time to this city, where flag raising ceremonies are held on Chinese National Day…is this a joke to somebody?
Another thing to point out are the “installations” placed by the Wan Chai waterfront park just a walk away from the hidious, dis-tasteful Comic Handover Memorial of a mess.
The question is are we not stressed out enough in one of the most populated, dense cities in the world? At one of the only open areas on Hong Kong island where citizens would get to see some open sky, take a breather and relax, they decided to just stock pile on “art” installations. There is no consistancy or method in these items and i’ll be down right direct in saying they are useless, dis-tasteful and an eye sore.
These are only 2 of the many recent failed development projects that scream HK Gov. mentality. Get experts or real designers to be involved, look in to the purpose of these locations and get out of this shallow, cheap impression of : oh, people are going to love it because they could take photos and post on Instagram.
ONE of these days i’m writing a proposal and addressing this before my city becomes a joke.
First Environment Concepts
Now that I am trying to create the look and feel of Hong Kong without actually addressing recent city planning hell. Although the whole city planning issue is bothering me, but that has only occured to me very recently and I sort of want to construct this fictional version of a city in a more fashionable manner. In some way, I see this version of reality where the high society doesn’t even bother giving it a second thought about entertaining the people “below”.
My concept is that in the year 3000 when everyone is expecting flying cars and a high tech city, in reality nothing much is different, aside from the occasional transport, weapons or some small devices.
The running theme in my pages are direct in the old vs new, low vs high society ; as I want to emphesise the awkward wealth imbalance in Hong Kong.
ANDY WAS HERE
ANDY was here 🤓 