Kowloon Walled City

SNEHANJALI SUMANTH

#20378875

NOV. 19th, 2010

Kowloon Walled City has an aura of disbelief surrounding it. It is a marvellous anomaly, a phenomenon that now, after its destruction, I cannot believe actually existed.

Even after all the struggles it went through, from the British to the Japanese to the Triad, the city managed to grow at a very fast rate.

"Almost to the end it retained its seedy magnificence. It had never looked more impudent, more desperate, more evil to some eyes, more weirdly beautiful to others. (City of Darkness, pg. 9)"

There are many aspects I view the city from, some that are contradictory. It even has the strength to redefine some of the aspects, and the strength to make us question the idea of a city as we know it.

As a slum

The city unarguably falls under the category of a slum. The housing, living conditions and high rates of poverty deem it unconditionally so.

"The City reared up abruptly from the bare ground, 10, 12, in places as many as 14 storeys high, and there was no mistaking it: six-and-a-half acres of solid building, home to 33,000 people, the biggest slum in the world. It was also, arguably, the closest thing to a truly self-regulating, self-sufficient, self-determining modern city ever built. (City of Darkness, pg 9)"

As a city

"What is a city in essence? How do we arrive at one that really works, that satisfies the deep emotional as well as the everyday needs of the people who live in it, to the same degree as the ideal sort of village? For all its squalor and its legacy of vice, Kowloon's Walled City offered some intriguing answers. (City of Darkness, pg. 9)"

The idea of a city is still one that I am not very certain of. In all its failures, Kowloon Walled City still is, essentially a city. A Popham said, how do we arrive at one that works? Does this city work? How can it function as a slum and a city, that too a modern one? The idea is clearly spectacular; one of great debate. As for suiting the needs of the people who live in it, we would get down to the question "what are needs?"

As an anarchy

"The Walled City became that rarest of things, a working model of the anarchist society. Inevitably, it bred all the vices that the enemies of anarchism denounce. (City of Darkness, pg. 10)"

This is just another way the city flourished. It is human nature for a power structure to form when a group of people come together. The city did go through its stages of power struggles, from the British to the Triads, but essentially fought and each time became stronger.

As an architectural marvel

"What fascinates about the Walled City is that, for all its horrible shortcomings, its builders and residents succeeded in creating what modern architects, with all their money and expertise, have failed to: the city as 'organic megastructure', not set rigidly for a lifetime but continually responsive to the changing requirements of its users. (City of Darkness, pg. 13)"

As a person whose aim is to become an architect but is not quite there yet, I do not feel I have enough experience to contemplate and even debate this sentence; my knowledge does not span that far yet. However, the architecture of the city has adapted to the changes the city has gone through, especially population growth.

"Through a continual process of demolition and reconstruction - with never an architect in sight - individual buildings gradually homogenized. An intricate network of communal stairways and corridors linked on to the other, creating a warren of passages that made it possible to traverse the City without once touching the ground.

As a home

Most importantly, this city housed approximately 33,000 people. 33,000 people who called that place home. Although the conditions were quite horrible, the work was excruciating and poverty was high, simple people lived simple lives. Families were born, children played and they had a roof over their head.

Sources

Girard, Greg, and Ian Lambot. City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City. [Chiddingfold]: Watermark, 2007. Print