Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook
Hong Kong is a city without ground. This is true both physically (built on steep slopes, the city has no ground plane) and culturally (there is no concept of ground). Density obliterates figure-ground in the city, and in turn re-defines public-private spatial relationships. Without a ground, there can be no figure either. In fact, Hong Kong lacks any of the traditional figure-ground relationships that shape urban space: axis, edge, centre, even fabric. Cities Without Ground explores this condition by mapping three-dimensional circulation networks that join shopping malls, train stations and public transport interchanges, public parks and private lobbies as a series of spatial models and drawings. These networks form a continuous space of variegated environments that serves as a fundamental public resource for the city. The emergence of the shopping malls as spaces of civil society rather than of global capital as grounds of resistance comes as a surprise. This continuous network and the microclimates of temperature, humidity, noise and smell which differentiate it constitute an entirely new form of urban spatial hierarchy.
- Paperback | 196 pages
- 140 x 200 x 10.16mm | 272.16g
- 27 Nov 2012
- Oro Editions
- San Rafael, United States
- English
- 53 col photos, 47 col ills
- 1935935321
- 9781935935322
