Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong. Kowloon is known for the walled city which was a coastal fort. It has its own set of history beyond. In simple it is an unplanned city that turns into a place for livelihood. It was settled in 1898 and it was demolished in 1994. Kowloon Walled City is an unorganized, undesigned, and ungoverned enclave within Hong Kong. It is a place that no one could ever imagine to live a life, it’s more like a structure in comics and cartoons. Kowloon walled city of buildings on 2.7 hectares, which has 500 buildings with 30,000 – 50,000 residents, a mass of 12 to 14-story buildings. There were not only houses, it had many factories as well.
Dystopian Architecture
Kowloon walled city is not welcomed by the world, as it created a bad vision for society, it is also related to the dystopian, which means the future of the worst.Kowloon walled city was merely treated as a nightmare, as it was not beautiful and it was more of blocks placed over the other congested.Kowloon Walled City was designed along with the situation of the people who lived there, there were no engineers, architects, or designers organized. This city is near the famous airport.Kowloon Walled City has buildings that have 14 floors with a concept of 40 sq. ft per person. Every house was stacked among each other, it was a house with a single room. It was seen as a ‘City of Darkness’, a ‘ City of Nightmares’, as many illegal processes also easily developed in the area. All the 300 interconnected buildings were narrow, steep, and tall, people who lived in at least 100 sq.m for a living room cannot even imagine life over in the Kowloon walled city. There were passways, and streets over there, which were full of dark and wet. As this city is ungoverned there was no proper organized electricity and water, some of them were illegal most of the time water dripped, and some nights with dark because no one could complain other than connecting to another cable.
Greater Community
Even though it was known for its dystopian architecture, the people who lived and worked here never felt that way, they lived and designed as they wanted to do. There was illegal stuff going on but there formed a community of people who worked and lived for themselves without depending on the outside world, even people outside depended on them. Famous restaurants and hotels are buying stuff from these like noodles and cooking items. Kowloon walled city is not only about houses and livelihood it has a huge production system which is handled by a common individual in the city but the people there adopt their lifestyle according to that, they even have streets inside the building spaces, people from the outside world had a fear of entering into this city because of the illegal activities like prostitution, weed, pickpockets, etc. No police were aware of this particular place, they could not take action because criminals made this Kowloon wall city their hiding place. For a good society beautiful buildings and structures are not important, the community should be more selfless and together for a better future. None of the people in the walled city were selfish, educated people provided a good education over there even though there was no proper school, doctors were there at the cheapest price even people from outside the city contacted them, and factories were there baking, noodles, meats and stews, cleaning, processing even with only two people without rest they used to work for the community.
Architecturally Possible
Kowloon Walled City created a huge impact in the 1990s, but no one knows it reflected the future. Yes, it was designed in such a vertical manner in a small space which gave life to over ten thousand people. Today in this modern world, designers are designing the vertical city, but it was a design that got into this world at that time itself, if the government took over the control and had an idea of redesigning then demolishing the structure it could be the major turning point because people only complain about the dark, wet, soggy, congested, space constrain. This could have been achieved by just redesigning the structure.
Looking up to the concept of the Kowloon walled city design is phenomenal, how human beings can able to set up their space according to their specification and can live life for years without depending on the world. This city was only known by specific people related to architecture and photography.
Kowloon walled city never deserves that demolishment. This city can be redesigned in this modern day by using software at least, there were certain problems but they created a beautiful community. In these modern days even living in the neighbourhoods people refuse to be in contact with each other, they do not want to socialize. This can be fixed even if they lived with each other and the spaces can also be reduced as well, more methods were developed. Kowloon walled city is something that was created and destroyed because it couldn’t be solved.
Reference List:
- https://www.kickstarter.com/stories/kowloon
- https://dsignsomething.com/en/2021/06/24/dystopian-architecture-brutalism-buildings-in-the-cinematic-world-that-are-both-home-and-symbolic-weapons/
