Tag: Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

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[Reading Response] Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance

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 Ackbar Abbas’s article, “Building on Disappearance,” delves deep into the ramifications of Hong Kong’s rapid urbanization, examining the *vanishing* effects it has had on the built environment, urban fabric, and cultural heritage. Abbas explores the relationship between architectural entities and collective memory; it highlights the heightened significance of the theme of disappearance in Hong Kong cinema, particularly in the aftermath of the pivotal 1997 handover to China. His analysis underscores the profound impact of vanishing edifices, the loss of architectural continuity, and the erasure of cultural landmarks on the city’s sociocultural tapestry. And he touches on the anxiety people in

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Cat Links Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

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The article mainly talks about the disappearances in Hong Kong. The most obvious disappearance is the architecture which is regarded as a commodity. These buildings can be easily ruined due to economic reasons. In some cases such as the clock tower and the Hong Kong culture centre, although the government kept the original building it is so weird to connect colonial architecture with the modern cultural centre with continuity. It is only used for visual consumption and we ignore the meaning behind these buildings. Other examples like the Flagstaff House and the Repulse Bay Hotel have a similar problem that

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Cat Links Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3594195@connect.hku.hk

Abbas’s reading put out an interesting idea that we should be selective when persevering cultural architecture and think more about the cultural aspects of architecture. In the article, the author mentioned that in Hong Kong nowadays treat buildings as commodity and just let the market mechanism affect architecture. And as a result, those building that get well preserved or get the most exposure might not sufficiently represent Hong Kong culture. For instance, the Junk in Vitoria Harbor might often be seen in many movies and these famous architectures appear in the movie might be the first cultural impression of Hong

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Cat Links Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas]

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To a moderate extent, I agree with the perspective of Abbas. Often in films, the portrayal of cities is fogged by generalization and trends and stray away from genuine portrayal. However, for Hong Kong to be identified as a generic city due to such occurrence is up for debate. Personally, residing in multiple countries, there are qualities of Hong Kong that cannot be found in other areas. While Hong Kong is known for being multicultural, there are still hints of historical genetics inside of buildings. It feels as if the buildings speak two languages, global and Cantonese. However, Abbas’s perspective

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Cat Links Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

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After the reading, I couldn’t help thinking about how architecture shapes national and individual cultural identity. As far as I am concerned, the environment and society I grew up in created my own cultural identity, and architecture is indispensable in the environment. Buildings give people emotion and support. Every building tells its historical story. To demolish the building and forget the history due to the needs of urban development will undoubtedly be strongly opposed and stopped by people. The Reading points out that “architecture is defined by the people who live in it.” This sentence indicates that architecture itself has

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Cat Links 2022 Blog, Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3592431@connect.hku.hk

In the text, Abbas mentioned the disappearance in Hong Kong history and monuments. To me, disappearance means that the fade away of a certain kind of style. It can be building style, behaviours or people’s lifestyle. The change happening in Hong Kong is really quick— especially environmental. Some old buildings are demolished and rehabilitated. Diesppearance seems to be happening everywhere in Hong Kong. Abbas mentions that preservation projects can keep history in sight and keep buildings in site.  However, it comes to the spotlight that rehabilitation may make the building different from the original one, as referred, ‘the unfamiliar in

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Cat Links Lecture 2: Filming the Modern Asian City

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas AND Giuliano Bruno

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Ackbar‘s text stated that disappearance is not only about physical disappearance, but also changing its social meanings. Flagstaff House introduces is an old British military building is preserved physically, but the space inside has changed into a tea museum, this changes the human activities and experience.  The feeling of formal and private originally created by the architecture has disappeared and changed to a public space for leisure.  This is where film takes its essential place to records the change of the relationship of the people and architecture by times. Giuliano’s text introduces me to the purpose of a film of

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on Matsumoto Ami

by Matsumoto Ami 3035831305 The Global Cities: Cinema, architecture and urbanism in a digital age by Abbas, a great example of using an interdisciplinary approach including films to dissect and analyse the phenomenon of global cities. The author picked the famous film in each majority urban city including Hong Kong to examine how globalization may affect our physiological and physical urban experience. Using films as an entry point is a wise choice since the architecture is a storyboard that keeps changing over the years and the film is the expression of the director’s understanding that captures the momentary setting.  Referring

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

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Upon reflection, the reading is an exceptionally well-articulated piece regarding the two-way relationship between cities and cinema. On the one hand, it is not only a manifestation of the urban experience but also adds elements of instability and evokes imagery of the city that are unpredictable. I believe this particularly holds true as the richness and condensed nature of films means to a certain extent it must hone it on “landmarks” or focal points that the audience is able to relate to, and at the same time draw attention to, for instance, the underlying social tensions that the audience has

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Global Space, Time + The City

[Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas]

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In the article, Ackbar Abbas poses arguments about the different changes that have been takin place in cities and how a strict analysis of cinema helps us understand these changes. The writer has mainly probed into two kinds of cities: Exorbitant and generic cities. He has defined exorbitant city as a city that is impossible to capture in one scene, it is not photogenic and cannot draw on the available repertoire of images, it relates to the kind of uncertain sociality found in cities where social relations are either changing or have broken down. On the other hand, he defines

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