Cities Without Ground

On a whim last week I attended a Princeton alumni event during lunch, a short talk and guided visit at the M+ Museum Exhibition, "Hong Kong: Here and Beyond".  I was sorely tempted to skip it on the day (because, Kowloon! Random event! I wouldn't know anyone!) but in retrospect I'm so glad I went.

A couple of architecture alums had gotten together in Hong Kong and written a book 10 years prior entitled "Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook Display" which had pages and pages of maps showing all the interconnectivity of Hong Kong, in particular a part of the Central Western corridor, the fruit of 2-3 years of their manual labor traipsing around studying and mapping out all the maps and tunnels and floor plans of all the bridges, walkways, escalators and moving parts of this part of the city.  

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the publication and to tie in to the portion of the exhibit detailing Hong Kong's unique architecture, geography, density and design, the museum commissioned them to create a 3D model illustrating the space.  

I walk these malls, hallways, corridors and tunnels every day, but seeing it pulled altogether into a model was illuminating and evocative.  It brought back memories of when I first arrived here, and struggled to understand how to access the city.  

Coming from Manhattan and, prior to that, Chicago, I did not really have a concept of a 3-D urban scene.  I know that sounds really weird because those are large cities with glittering skyscrapers and height on a great scale, but what I really mean is that the social lives of these cities' inhabitants, i.e. the lives of the people, are lived and carried out on the ground.  The closest you come to in Chicago is the El, and even then only portions of it are elevated, and it's a transportation system, so largely serving one purpose and carrying out one discrete function. 

In New York, despite all of its glittering spiky skyscrapers, the spaces in the air are mostly private spaces, apartment buildings and office spaces.  Retail doesn't really exist other than at ground level, and maybe occasionally at one level below ground.  For such a commanding city, the social and public scene in New York is actually incredibly compressed on the vertical axis.

When I got to Hong Kong, I honestly did not understand or know how to access bars and restaurants that were on the 8th, 16th, or 25th floor of a building.  In Hong Kong, I would walk into a nondescript building and find in the lift 20 different shops and restaurants, identified by the little sticker next to the floor number. How do you find this stuff!? was a common refrain I howled in my head at the time.  I had to learn how to mentally configure and navigate shops and restaurants without a physical storefront to map it to.

In Hong Kong, there really are multiple layers to the residents' social, public and private lives.  Ours is a life lived in the sky.

More than anything, the event made me realize how much I miss discussion, learning and discourse.  We basically held a mini precept at M+!  

The discussion raised in my mind all kinds of questions about technology (this project was done before we had drones and before Google Maps was so developed in Hong Kong; would this project still be carried out today, would it still have value, would technology have made any difference in the ease of implementation and if not, why is that?), urban planning (what drives the interconnectivity of these various conduits and walkways, given some are government funded, most are entirely private, some are partially public, partially private?), the impetus of this and the transferability (what unique confluence of factors in Hong Kong has led to this particularly fantastic result, that cities elsewhere have largely failed to replicate despite trying?) and really just a rumination on urban space and policy in general - who shapes it, is it top down or bottom up, is this a good or bad thing, should other cities try to emulate it, what can we learn from this or do to improve upon it?)

I also picked up an unlikely friend if you will - an alum from the class of '85 with whom I conversed the whole way back into the city.  I loved chatting with her about work, life, responsibility, child-rearing... we couldn't stop talking!

I walked away from the event giddy, practically fizzing with excitement.  A couple of weeks ago I was struggling to figure it whether I was an introvert or extrovert.  I think this confirms I am most definitely an extrovert!