The idea of exorbitant and generic are a progressive, yet paradoxical idea that consistently perpetuates throughout time. Through the reading and discussions done along the tutorial, I’d interpret the idea of generic city as a byproduct of the modernised globalisation. In fact, every city have always been craving for exorbitant, the ubiquity of each city at its core are preserving their own history and culture. Here are the nuances that differs each metropolis from one another, but at a global lens, every each links back to the “generic” state when cities are forever growing as they slowly loses its “identity”. This identity crisis firebacks significantly to Hong Kong especially as we experiences the handover post-colonial heterotopia (in a way) so this self-identifying failure have been significant throughout the years.
However, I personally question a lot on Koolhaas’ definition based on bias and mere observation through short years as defining all these “asian” cities generic. It was interesting how architects interprets their own perception of a cityscape and the urban space with a lot of prejudice that then, slowly influences the actual progression of the state of the city.
You have rightly pointed out the city as a paradoxical place and condition. Continuing this line of thinking, consider how the “generic city” and “exorbitant city” coexist in Hong Kong. If “every city [has] always been craving for [the qualities of the] exorbitant,” then how does the “generic” occur? Rather than writing Koolhaas off too fast as the outsider critique who does not know Asian cities, consider the premise in which he is basing his observations: cities built on financial base that pursue rapid economic development at the expense of other forms of development (hence he sees Singapore, more than Hong Kong, as a better example of the “generic city”). Within the ideological rubric of consumption, every contemporary global city has tended towards the generic. Perhaps a more meaningful question could be to what extent can the qualities of “exorbitant city” be produced, maintained/nurtured, and even re-produced?