‘For all its inconveniences, Laing was satisfied with life in the high-rise.’
– J.G. Ballard, High-Rise.
This quote from J.G. Ballard’s dystopian novel “High-Rise” was in the back of my mind for all the duration of my stay in Hong Kong. Indeed, the high-rise way of life was everywhere, surrounding me.
Hong Kong is well-known for being one of the densest cities in the world. It exponentially developed after 1949, when the government had to build high-rises to house migrants seeking refuge in the city. Nowadays, it’s estimated that more than 50% of the city’s population lives in social housing. Styles evolved from the post-WWII slabs to contemporary “star-shaped” towers.
.
Instinctively, I started photographing these towers, wondering “people. how do they live in there?”
These buildings are high, blank and impressive – it systematically gives outsiders a mixed feeling of fascination, fear, alienation, also fuelled by regular photo essays and reports – from Michael Wolf to Andy Yeung – on the weird, sometimes inhumane, living conditions experienced there.
.
Who lives in these landscapes?
What gets out of these landscapes?
How are social norms evolving in these landscapes?
Do they offer a happier and healthier life?
.
Photographing these buildings became a way to appropriate the landscape, to humanise it and to humanise Hong Kong in general.
.
.
.
How do people live in there?
In Patterns of living, authors go over the shapes and characteristics of the standardised and serialised apartment type that constitutes the high-rise tower blocks. They notably highlight the emergence of “a particular flat type that housing studies now categorises as ‘indeterminate’: it is offered to tenants as a single room to partition to suit their own desires. Its success offers a model with international significance, controversial especially in rental housing, but potentially a way forward in reducing housing costs and allowing future flexibility.”
Read: Patterns of Living: Hong-Kong’s High-Rise Communities, Hillary French & Yanki Lee
Leave a Reply