Chasing Ambiguous Conditions of Coexistence
More than a city, Hong Kong is a condition, where diverse moments of human habitation collectively generate an unparalleled urban ecology. This chapter seeks to explore the city in transformation, a transformation made up of material and immaterial inhabitation elements, a city that does not offer abstract theoretical positions, but rather offers behavioral patterns that have to be read and interpreted. By challenging preconceived notions of how we see our cities, steering away from the prescribed notions of urbanism and architecture as abstract entities, it seeks to re-address the link between the city and human habitation. Hong Kong is a city that has always developed, as a reaction to given conditions, be it political or geographically, which in the process engenders a unique identity that responds and adapts to situations. Conditions form the backdrop against which we live our daily life; they are the fragments that generate the public/social realm. They represent both the ambiguous line between the city and its citizens and the moment when coexistence between the physical and the meta-physical realms collides. Understanding Hong Kong as a series of conditions allows us to interrogate our collective DNA of habitation and initiates a dialogue that anticipates rather than assesses, accepts rather than postulates.
Author:
Peter W. Ferretto