In his essay “Building on Disappearance – Hong Kong Architecture and Colonial Space,” Ackbar Abbas explores the complex relationship between Hong Kong’s architecture and its identity as a city. Published in 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover from the British Empire to the People’s Republic of China, Abbas argues that Hong Kong has a culture of disappearance due to its colonial past and its impending erosion by the market system and globalization.
The author contends that architecture is the first visual evidence of a city’s identity, but preservation can be selective and tends to exclude the dirt and pain of its history. He points out that such preservation can create a space of disappearance, where memories are lost in the process. Abbas gives examples of the Hong Kong Cultural Center and Flagstaff House, where the preservation of colonial symbols reinforces colonial subjectivity and erases Hong Kong’s cultural autonomy.
Abbas also notes that Hong Kong is caught between two colonialites and suppressed by globalization and the market system. To develop a sense of space and discourse about Hong Kong’s subjectivity, Abbas suggests tracing back to its spatial histories. He defines Hong Kong’s buildings as merely local, placeless, and anonymous. The anonymous buildings, most commercial and residential buildings, are linked with hyperdensity and engender multiplication and concentration of different functions in the same space, potentially developing Hong Kong’s subjectivity.
However, Abbas acknowledges that the problem of lacking autonomy, domination of the market system, and inequality in Hong Kong cannot be ignored. He suggests that finding a solution through anonymous buildings should not come at the expense of Hong Kong’s grassroots population.
Even though the essay was written over 20 years ago, Hong Kong still needs to overcome many of the same problems. The city is still struggling with the two ‘colonialites’ and trying to find its identity. The construction of villas for the privileged from the mainland has increased, while Hong Kong’s grassroots population cannot afford housing. Despite the development of public housing, the severe demand for housing persists. Hong Kong seems to be a place that serves the privileged few rather than the majority of its population.
Yang Yiru
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You have dedicated a great proportion of your writing in extracting the ideas raised by Abbas to discuss the relation between HK’s identity and its spaces and I think you did a great job there. Although I see a linkage between how the subject of matter mentioned in Abbas is linked to your own thoughts on ‘who is HK building for?’ but it is not highly interrelated. Maybe you can also discuss the capitalist character of HK which even affects how HK addresses our own identity and architectural history.