Terminating Architecture: Mega-Development in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper examines large development projects as a function of finance in the context of Hong Kong, taking Kowloon Station as an exceptionally revealing case. Hong Kong's property market is one of the most established in Asia, and it points to the ways in which large-scale development schemes proliferate along efficient and affordable mass transit railway systems with great speed and success. At Kowloon Station, finance redefines architecture; instead of focusing on aesthetics and community, it is now promoting standardization, market visibility and semantic control. The financial viability of these developments depends entirely on these new goals; mega-developments such as Kowloon Station – and those in other parts of Asia – are successful in inventing major mass transit railway stations as terminals, in capturing commuters within spatial enclosures surrounded by barrier-like physical features, and in terminating architecture as it has long been established as a discipline. Mega-development is increasingly reinventing the contemporary Asian city.

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