9 - It Makes a Village: Hong Kong’s Podium Shopping Malls as Global Villages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2021
Summary
Abstract
As British colonial rule in Hong Kong waned, a plan was drawn up for the future of the city as an interconnected global metropolis. A US$ 20-billion public works project, the Airport Core Program, was implemented to ensure global confidence in the city as it transitioned to Chinese rule. The project, typically described in terms of the ten major infrastructure projects that connected the city to global networks, also resulted in the proliferation of a typology particularly adept at integrating these networks into the local context. A unique spatial product of Hong Kong's postcolonial globalization, these malls represent a mature form of a typology influenced by the city's unique constraints. This paper demonstrates how podium shopping malls form links between Hong Kong's global and local infrastructures, underpinning its transition from colonial city to global metropolis.
Introduction
Hong Kong defies simple solutions. The official slogan ‘Asia's World City’ suggests a bland and artificial peace with its complex history: junk boats floating serenely past skyscrapers. In fact, Hong Kong's transition from British colony to global city is characterized by rougher waters. ‘Asia's World City’ has the right idea: it is precisely Hong Kong's relationship to the rest of the world that defines its character and its qualities today, from its unique political and cultural institutions to its continued economic rise. Hong Kong, in contrast to post-colonial cities such as New Delhi, Penang, or Jakarta, is able to achieve cosmopolitan or extra-national status as a world city because of its ability to forge and maintain strong links between local and global populations. It is in the nature of ‘Asia’, ‘World’, and ‘City’ that the smooth and homogeneous marketing tool diverges from a segmented and heterogeneous reality. Exchange systems in Hong Kong force difficult balances at every level, as Tsung-yi Michelle Huang explores in her chapter in this book, which investigates both the historical forces and the cultural effects of Hong Kong's post-1997 regional integration with Mainland China. Borders between cultures and economies and the systems for connecting them figure largely in Hong Kong's formulation of itself as a global city. How do such systems for connection manifest themselves in built form? The answer may help explicate some of the more turbulent urbanism behind the city's post-colonial marketing campaign.
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- Information
- Aspects of Urbanization in ChinaShanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, pp. 165 - 182Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2012