Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Hong Kong is gradually becoming a generic city which refers to the city free of any history and characteristics. The generic city is actually the final product of modernism and science, which kind of are the antithesis of history and identity. From my perspective, for this phenomenon, the merits outweigh the defects. The citizens can confer and add many features to their city freely instead of worrying about destroying the old characteristics, just like decorating a total new house without any limitations.

Also, this concept reminds me of a line from the movie The Young and Prodigious Spivet, “Every millimeter of landscape was replaced by manmade constructions ruled by the laws of geometry. How could humans create so many right angles when their behavior is so convoluted and illogical?” And Hong Kong is such a city with so many “right angles” and will have more and more right angles.

So, although the generic city is defined as the city without any characteristics, “right angles” can be a characteristic of the generic city.

35759208, Yan Jing

1 thought on “Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

  1. Putri Santoso says:

    I enjoyed reading your reflection and how you used the “right angles” to characterise generic cities. Although, I would say that these “right angles” have been evolving throughout time; what is deemed modern in the 1980s now become history. But who gets to decide which “right angles” are supposed to be implemented in the city, then? As the city is an ever-complex and intricate system, consists of layers of people and culture, how would imposing these “right angles” could affect the life of the urban dwellers? Also, when the “right angles” becomes the norm/characteristic of the generic city, would all “right angles” in the world be the same? Or would it be plausible for every city in the world to designed and shaped the same way, creating some sort of spatial homogeneity?

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