[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas and Michel de Certeau]

For the concept “place and space”, Abbas addresses “fixed places”, such as non-places (where human beings remain anonymous), are interconnected in the “unpredictable spaces”, which act as typologies and geography. The “places” mentioned in HK has a cultural significance, which presents the idiosyncrasies of HK’s urban space — “capitalism inscribed in built space”, forming the hyperdensity open city during globalization and colonial period. Moreover, Certeau mentions the “space” where pedestrians moves in a space of present (pathway possibilities), discretes (places to ignore) and “phatic” (pedestrians’ walk metaphorically talk along streets). “Phatic” is being described for pedestrians since Certeau believes art

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Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

It is mentioned in the reading that preservation is not memory, instead, it is selective and tends to exclude the dirt and pain. However, I would like to add my point of view. I would not like to see preservation being merely for visual consumption. Adaptive reuse is an obvious solution when preserving buildings, but apart from solely having it as a decoration, the memory behind the building, the emotional connection that people might have with any particular historic buildings, should also be considered. The Waterhouse Hotel in Shanghai and the Neues Museum in Berlin are good examples of preservation

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[READING RESPONSE: MICHEL DE CERTEAU]

  Michel de Certeau had explored the city in relation to two different parties, the city as a whole (skyscrapers) and pedestrians (individuals). In the beginning of the ‘Walking in the city’, the author mentions the World Trade Center in New York to portray how such skyscrapers are constructing a city, in response how they are . Although, he adds on how the role of pedestrian navigating the city and how they express and repress the city. Only walking a certain area may restrict the view, however, it may have the ‘synecdoche’ effect when small piece reflects the larger view

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Reading Response :Michel de Certeau

Concerning Michel De Certeau’s “Walking in the City”, he emphasized “urban life increasingly permits the re-emergence of the element that the urbanistic project excluded”, and individuals’ experience of every day in an urban environment is essential. By mentioning his detailed walking experience in the city, I understand that walking in the city is “more important” than viewing it. As each individual have their own style – which understanding and interpretation of the city is different, so we create our own meaning to the city. Moreover, the article brings us to de Certeau’s distinction between strategies and tactics. Now, I start

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Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

After reading the essay ‘Building on Disappearance: Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space’, I would like to share some feelings about this essay. First, it mentions what property speculation is and I agree that Hong Kong has this phenomenon. Some monumental or new building may disappear because the owners can sell their building without asking other people. Such as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Central become an office building. However, I do not think it is a very big problem. Every place will change because of development. Nowadays, when people think the environment of Central, most of them will imagine many

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Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

The reading I’m mainly responding to is “Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance” written by Abbas. In this reading, Abbas has used various ideas and a few examples to show the anxiety to disappearance in current Hong Kong’s built environment as well as culture and politics. Hong Kong’s building environment is complex, it builds itself on a very unique historical context, containing from the traditional fishing village and small towns, colonial buildings to financial high-rises and shopping malls. In the tutorial, our tutor mentioned one of the reasons for putting Hong Kong into a state of constant disappearance

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Reading Response: Michel de Certeau

French cultural critic gave a new definition to the New York City in the 1980s which is perspectived from not the physical, but the socio-cultural perspective, i.e. the idea of mobile city. Concepts like “space is a practiced space”, and the most noteworthy difference between space and place are raised. These concepts are validated by observing networks of relations among different “places” which are actualized by the network of mobility among “spaces” achieved by the pedestrian movement. The complexity of such are then criticized from linguistics and anatomic parallels which surprising resemble these concepts within the mobile city. In short,

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Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Hong Kong as people know is a dynamic city never ceasing in development.  The same dynamics are exhibited too on the city landscape. Quoting Walter Benjamin “In the convulsions of the commodity economy, we begin to recognise the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled”– a statement that remains relevant to this day. For the pursuit of profit maximization under the market forces, monumental buildings are often demolished without second thoughts. The Central Post Office being a prime example; whilst the 1976 building that stands today will soon be rubble to make way for development projects,

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[Reflection] Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance (Abbas, 1997)

Abbas categorized Hong Kong’s built space into three types. Merely Local, one of them, was used to describe existing architecture from last generation. The group is usually preserved or rehabilitated for collective memory from the hundred-year colonial history. Despite the wish and vision on conservation, adaptive reuse of merely local historic buildings is controversial due to relative commercial development. Former Marine Police Headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui (now renamed as 1881 Heritage) is a well-known one where the slope landscape was replaced by nostalgic European style plaza and luxury goods shops. High point location of the headquarters is preserved but

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Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

This article talks about how culture and politics disappeared in Hong Kong. The author wrote about several aspects of the disappearance. Firstly, architecture in Hong Kong is continuously dissolving. Not only old buildings that can not satisfy economic development or not high enough to settle an increasing number of residents were demolished but also, architectures with significant historical value had been removed to recall the flourishing market. Secondly, history in Hong Kong is gradually disappearing. Although a few numbers of historical buildings have been preserved, they were preserved in an awkward way-namely remaining the outlook of the colonial style and

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