TOWER ISOLATION

“The context of bigness within a city is that:

‘It exists; at most, it coexists.

Its subtext is fuck context.’”

Rem Koolhaas, Bigness, 1994

This exhibit explores the decline of rational urban design and the increasing homogeneity of urban typologies with particular emphasis on the rise of the neoliberalism pencil tower. The discourse studies how the pencil tower has affected the scale and morphology of Hong Kong from the 1800’s to now, 2021.

The critical theory was tested by producing a Nolli-themed typological map of the contemporary Hong Kong, which isolated the tower typology as the typology Hong Kong is most dense with. The study draws speculations about the future of Hong Kong’s typology, and what it is evolving to become. How will the city continue to be changed by privitisation and the expectations of global companies now ruling the land? And to what extent does the structure of the city and the activities and people in them change over time to exert this control over the typology? Is Hong Kong moving towards a city of Bigness?

The final piece arranges plaster-cast, pencil tower typologies into a dystopian city; one that creates the illusion of ‘what you see is no longer what you get’. The hands of the citizens scale and challenge the neoliberalist icon of the pencil tower, attempting to regain agency over the privatised city and re-establish their presence in the city through green space and green towers of communities.

“Hong Kong has the potential to be Asia’s Garden City on the Sea.”

New Thinking for Hong Kong’s Future

Simon Bee, 2020