Escalators in the City
This video was filmed at the Mid-Levels Escalator in Central. It was shot at 6:30 pm on a Friday, which is when the escalator is running upwards in a single direction. In the first half of the video, I followed the upward flow of people up the escalator to the end, and in the second half of the video, I recorded the process of going down through the stairs and the flyovers. The escalator is very narrow and not continuously located, passing many old stores and bars, etc., from the central business district of Central to the residential area of Mid-Levels. The escalators are very close to the surrounding buildings, the closest being about less than a meter.
Escalator originated from the French word escalade, which means “to climb”. Before escalators were invented, people had to rely on stairs and vertical elevators to move to higher places or, more primitively, to climb. But these ways were limited by the physical strength and the number of people they carried, and the escalator changed everything. It is vertical transportation that extends our sense of space and time. Historically, escalators first appeared in shopping malls, changing the shopping experience. In the early 20th century, escalators were installed in New York and London subway stations, transforming public transportation. In the first half of the 20th century, escalators quickly became a tool for improving efficiency, enabling quick shifts for workers in factories. Later, the escalator became one of the settings of modern life, and its influence went far beyond commerce to become a symbol of the human conquest of space.
The larger story is about the cultural phenomenon of social mobility. The invention transformed the way we interact with the world and how people move. Hong Kong is a city of glass. The distance between buildings is too intimate, where time and space are finely calculated. The placement of buildings, the shape of streets, the interaction of stairs and escalators, every detail is precisely taken care of, and every inch of land is optimized by the best architects using the best technology and techniques of the time. This is the character of Central, of Hong Kong, mobility.
The high density of Central has a high concentration of retail, service, entertainment venues, hotels, and other buildings, which gives it an extremely high traffic flow. Corresponding to this is a carefully planned transportation network with subways, buses, trams, etc. Among these transportation links are the Mid-Levels escalator and pedestrian flyover systems. These vertical means of transportation are like conveyor belts on the mountain; it improves the city’s traffic, increase the accessibility of the buildings and attract more people to the surrounding commercial buildings.
Within this 800-meter-long system are pedestrian walkways, flyovers, and 20 single-direction escalators. There are quite a few tourists here, but many more residents use it to commute. The escalators take 20 minutes. Most people will walk during and between sessions to save time, so the journey from the Central station to Mid-levels is about a 10-minute walk. The three dimensions of the city – air, surface and underground – together form a pedestrian transportation network that separates pedestrians from cars and also enhances the flow of people to businesses along the route. Escalators dissolve the dichotomy between architecture, city and street, blurring the boundaries between private and public territories. In addition, it helps to integrate indoor and outdoor activities, increasing the extension of commerce both horizontally and vertically. The composition of the escalator is accentuated by the “roof” and “floor”, which create an over-space of interior and exterior spaces, thus blurring the boundaries. Rainfall makes the potential boundary most perceptible, as it hinders movement inside and outside the “roof”. On sunny days, the shadows cast by the sun also suggest boundaries. The Central Escalator has a “roof” along its entire path, which provides a shared space with a very high degree of mobility.
Escalators are the fixed speed that people add to the city. When you want to give yourself a little time, you can’t sit on the escalator like you’re sitting on the stairs. It’s dangerous and freaky. Once you choose to use the escalator, whether standing or walking, you have to accept that you will always be taken to the destination by it. We have designed many fixed speeds for the city in different aspects, as we desire to keep the city developing. An important aspect of the original purpose of inventing and using escalators was to speed up and improve efficiency. And this is what society wants to develop.
References:
Claudy & Dan (2019). A HISTORY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN 50 OBJECTS. Cambridge University Press
Pitts, A., Saleh, J. B., & Sharples, S. (2008). Building transition spaces, comfort and energy use. In 25th International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture: Towards Zero Energy Building. University College Dublin.
ZHANG SHI YAN
UID: 3035772107