Architecture as Activist

Architecture as Activist

Cultivating a Redemptive Structuring of Public Space

School of Architecture The Chinese University of Hong Kong Master of Architecture, 2012-13 Thesis Research and Design Report

CHEUNG Kwai Yin Della | 1007624922 Thesis Tutor: Prof. Thomas Chung

Copyright Š All Rights Reserved.

The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works.

Architecture as Activist: Cultivating a Redemptive Structuring of Public Space

by CHEUNG Kwai Yin Della; supervised by Professor Thomas CHUNG Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture. School of Architecture. The Chinese University of Hong Kong June, 2013

“It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief�

Lionel Trilling

Content Part 1 - Research I. Abstract Research Objective Issue

3

II. Evidence Privatization of Public Space Permissible Activities on POSPD Conflicts in Public Space Level of Conflicts

7 9 10 12

III. Definition On Freedom On ‘Active Life’ in Public Realm On Citizenship and ‘Actions’

14 15 16

IV. Theoretical Basis Situationists Vision - Right to the City On Construction of Situations - Public Life in 1950s to 60s

18 23

V. Case Studies & Analysis Activists and the City Strategic Practice of an Activist Artist on Urban Activism - Gordon Matta Clark Continuum for Role of Art Activists

24 26 30 33

VI. Site Particulars Analysis and Critique of Public Space in Central On Threshold Interface

34 41

Part 2 - Design Design Strategy Site Significance - Prince’s Building Storyboard The Design Physical Models

56 62 64 67 83

Bibliography

90

Index

91

“if architecture is merely the codifying of bourgeois model of ownership and society, then we must reject architecture; if architecture and town planning is merely the formalization of present unjust social divisions, then we must reject town planning and its cities‌â€?

Adolfo Natalini

2

I

Abstract Research Objective This thesis project explores the possible roles of architecture as activist who expands one’s experience and their capacities in breaking the normalities and constraints within the city by testing and destabilizing the boundaries as to stake claim to our public space.

Activists illustrate a quite different set of relations between perceptions, intentions, actions and objects which reconsidered the ‘playability’ of urban space. During the whole process of action, they involved in opening up and exploring possibilities rather than seeking always to control, produce or prevent particular outcomes. Their behaviour also re-evaluates well-worn notions of ‘primary uses’ and ‘necessary activities’ within the city.

By employing the stratgetic practice of activists, this thesis project seeks to generate new architectural and urban strategies that break or dissolve the threshold between private and the public. Instead of giving a solution, it’s more of a critique on how the capitalist development will eventually lead to sterilized public space, with right boundaries shaping the realm and institutionalized structure dominating public life and interest. The design aims to encourage contestation and struggle in order to regain a genuine public realm.

Issue The quality of our city depends largely on the public space, where public space is a basic condition for civil society. Both artists, activists and ordinary citizens need this public space to disseminate information and messages, and these space is vital for citizens to have chances to see and express alternative views.

Under the inevitable capitalist development, privatization of public space has been growing in Hong Kong, suppressing citizen’s freedom over the use of public space. These so called public and semi-public spaces are internalized and controlled, turning into places of consumerism which is ruled by necessity.

In public spaces like shopping malls where pain-free consumerism is practised, risks are eliminated and uncertainties are kept as little as possible. These pseudo public space as sterile arenas tend to clear the ‘undesirable’ beings and objects, which fall into the private realm under Greek Polis’ definition.

In this realm, we abide by rules set by authorities, we embrace no true freedom within. As demonstrated by the architectural evolution in Central, the ambiguous and tactile experience of public space has been replaced with 3

highly rigid architectural boundaries between the private and public. These sterilized pseudo public space tends to clear the ‘undesirable’ beings, which is the general trend of development in Hong Kong and capitalistic cities worldwide.

A true public realm is where people “do” politics, that is, they can act and speak to each other with a view of freedom, and they are beginning something anew and creating a public space that could not generate by any other means. Unlike the internalised and predictable world of the private realm, much of the joy of the public realm comes from their surprising qualities. Here, the tendency is to encourage risk, to create places of uncertainties.

In recent years, people have been continuously struggling through demonstration, silent protest and occupying actions such as the Occupy Central to act against the privatization of public space and growing authoritarian force which suppresses citizen’s right to freedom of expression and action in the public realm.

Architecture, like activists, should have the ability and capacity in opening up avenues in the urban reality towards other realities and opportunities. To break normalities through strategic practices of confrontation and dislocation, as to expand the grey area for the tolerance of risk, uncertainties, and unpredictable actions.

4

Occupying Central Action at public plaza under HSBC headquarter, Central. 2012

Activists Hijacking Public Space in Hong Kong

Picnic at Times Square

by Kit Lee

The Times Square plaza is a privately-owned public space but should only be used for public purpose under the contract with preferential tax discount between the developer and the government. In 2008, the privatization of ground floor plaza of Times Square in Causeway Bay became a hot issue.

A local art activist Kit Lee initiated an experimental project “Picnic at Times Square� that tested and challenged the publicness of the space.

Occupy Central

The Occupy Central is an anti-capitalism occupation campaign against corporate greed and economic injustice that lasts for 332 days (15 October 2011 to 11 September 2012) in which it became the lengthiest occupy movements worldwide. Activists set camping tents and furniture at the plaza beneath HSBC Headquarter in Central, a space where you least expect to function as such, creating a commune of the public. The Occupy Central has spatially translated the social polarisation into a confronting position by developing new spatial relations that tested and announced the invisible boundaries within the city.

5

Public space is a place where many activities overlap: rich confusion, commerce, seduction, and filth. Public space works not as a designed element, but is instead carved out by wheeling and dealing, crossroads, and the chance at freedom, where a person emerges from shadows into light that grows into the ever-extending space of public gathering and demonstration, and seeps into every open pore of the city.

Aaron Betsky

6

II

Evidence Privatization of Public Space The privatization of public space is a growing phenomenon in capitalistic cities and particularly apparent in Hong Kong. These Public Open Space in Private Development (POSPD) are open space in private development under corporate management where the general public are entitled to access, use and enjoy such space. POSPD may be located on private land within a private development and / or on government land adjoining a private development.

Most the POSPD are provided for use by the public free of any form of payment as required under the land lease. Apart from making the open space accessible for public use, the concerned authority are also required to adopt a set of reasonable and transparent guidelines for users to comply. However in the Deeds of Dedication, there is no pre-determined scope of activities defined, permissible activities were subject to agreement between private corporates and the government. More and more POSPD are found to have been privatized by concerned authorities where dailiy activities such as sitting or lingering were forbidden, some are even converted into commercial space. Prejudiced enjoyment of such space are also commonly found, where some parties’ use of these space is deprived. Public open space under such state is not functioning as a true public realm, and is relegated to psuedo public space.

Doing relaxing exercises is under ‘always permissible’ category in the POSPD Management Guidelines.

7

According to the POSPD Management Guidelines provided by the Development Bureau, passive activities such as walking, doing relaxing exercises should be ‘always permissible’. Social interactions or functions such as events, exhibitions, group gathering etc. are also encouraged. As for some activity-based functions or festive events, they are not under the ‘always permissible’ category but are encouraged to be permitted. Commercial activities that contributes commercial gain to the private owner is not permitted on POSPD, where the owner may suffer disentitlement for making profit out of it. While particular commercial activities that may enhance the function of the area as public space could be considered, and is recommended to keep such commercial activities under 10% of the area.

Management principles on permissible activities Source: report on consultancy study on POSPD

Mapping of POSPD Dedicated for Public Use Public Green

PLAZA

Area > 500 sqm

Area > 500 sqm

Courtyard

Pocket Space

Area > 200 sqm

Mapping information obtained from Buildings Department

8

Area > 100 sqm

Promenade

Spatial recess every 50m of length

Permissible Activities on POSPD ... as stated by Legislative Council Panel on Development

Alway

s Perm

issible

Passiv

Activit

e activ

Doing Encou

raged

Tempo

ies

ities Walkin g

rary S tay g exerc ises

relaxin

Non-c

omme

rcial /C haritab le activ Enterta ities inmen t perfo rmanc e Music al perfo rmanc e Buskin g Group Festiv gathe e even ring fo ts r a pa rticula r purp ose Exhibit ions Arts a nd cu ltural a c ti vities Civic e ducati on ac tivities Limite

d Com

mercia

l Activ ities Alfresc o dinin Open g air cafe Comm s / kio ercial s k s exhibit ion an d even ts

raise awareness generate ideas on of public public space and spaces how to use them

urban picnic

presence of interface people unregulated use in public space and increase use

9

Conflicts in Public Space Shrinking ‘necessary activities’ within the city Setting behavioural regulations against public’s rights

Suppressing the ‘potential dangers’

Benefiting the authority at the expense of the city’s multiculturalism

Cases above reveals the suppression of citizen’s freedom over the use of public space in recent years. Public space is a common space where everyone could share and perform day-to-day activities, yet either some parties are excluded from the right to use the space, or some activities are prohibited in the space. It is found that private owners of certain public open space have set behavioural regulations against public’s rights, while the government has been suppressing ‘potential dangers’ in the city, benefiting the authority at the expense of the city’s multiculturalism and interest. ‘Necessary activities’ has been shrinking within the city.

“

Urban is a place of communication and information... place of desire, permanent disequilibrium, seat of the dissolution of normalities and constraints, the moment of play and of the unpredictable.

Henri Lefebvre

A true public space of a city is a place where unplanned events or activities of all kind could unfold. When citizen are under human or electronic surveillance, and being limited to access certain public space, they simply lose their right to the city, and such public space falls out of the public realm.

10

Evidence on Suppression of Citizens’ Freedom over the Use of Public Space

Public spaces are in fact only pseudo-public spaces...

1

2

3

4

^Prohibited activities in most local parks 1 ‘Privatisation’ of Times Square Plaza.

POS is leased out with a considerable money return while depriving its public use. People are prevented from sitting and lingering in the area.

2 HSBC plaza has highly visible security presence. Public are kept under human and electronic surveillance and could unknowingly become potential defendants. Gathering activities faced overt and oppressive control.

3 Local Social Movement Film Festival project movie on HSBC headquarter’s facade wall, with people staying outside HSBC’s ownership boundary still being quashed by security guards and police with violence.

4 Tamar Park’s ‘Overzealous’ security guards prevent people from lying on grassland with eyes closed or clothes covering body parts.

11

Level of Conflicts

Risk of Publicness Testing Behaviour

Between Authority’s Tolerance Level and the Publicness Testing Behaviour

Free

A

i We t pave iwei Stre ments e and b t Art Cam uilding p walls aign | 23-2 6 Ap

Stree

ril 201

HSBC HQ

plaza | 15

O

Oct 20ccupy C e 11 to 1 1 Sepntral t 2012

Wing

1

10th H

Outsid ong Ko ng e HSB C HQ So | 6-7

Fu Ind

ustria Hidden l Build A ing, K genda L iv wun T ong | e House since 2009

Sleep

ing o

12

n

The chart analysed citizens’ struggle for public space and authorities’ intolerance to ‘risk of publicness’. In these psuedo public space, risks are eliminated and uncertainties are kept as little as possible.

It can be concluded from the chart that the higher the potential risk caused by the publicness testing behaviour, the lower the authorities’ tolerance level.

Criminal damage accusation High Court eviction order

Overt and oppressive squash

ocial

Lands Dept’s warning on landuse and constant police inspection

7 Oct Moveme 2012 nt Fil m Fes tiv

al

High security with human and electronic surveillance Instant warning

Mask HSBC

ed Ar

HQ P tist Life D laza | 22 Oc rawing t 2012

Staff gently offer alternative suggestions

Allowed if mpocomplaints

n Tam

a

r Pa Tama rk’s gras r Park s | 2012

Picnic

Stree

Times at Time s Squar e | 5 MSquare arch 2 008

t Perf

o

Mong rmance o kok p edestr n Pedes tr ian str eet | 3ian Stree 1 Aug t 2012

Autho

rity’s T

oleran

ce 13

III

Definition On Freedom A true public realm is essential to any practice of freedom. The idea of freedom is not an absolute concept,its meaning and definition has been changing over time.Summarizing the development on the idea of freedom in history, the concept of freedom can be categorized into positive and negative freedom.

By Charles Taylor’s definition, positive freedom is freedom to choose one’s own pursuits in life, where one is not internally constrained, it is an ‘exerciseconcept’. While negative freedom is freedom from another individual’s direct interference, where one is not enslaved by external forces, it is an ‘opportunityconcept”. The creation of new situations can be seen as an opportunity concept, while the practice of art or activism is an exercise concept which can be triggered by the creation of situations.

“

There are always certain inevitable constraints that act upon the individual, the need to work and to act in the condition given by a specific environment. Every Human being in this world is limited by a situation. Yet every situation is open to freedom as long as the individual can choose himself by conferring certain significance to it. Thus the leading role can be held by our subjective orientation and not always by an external necessity.

Renaissance

Jean-Paul Sartre

I am my own master

Freedom of Thoughts

Freedom as in natural rights of an individual, a freedom to choose one’s own pursuits in life

Positive Freedom = an ‘Exercise-concept’ Isaiah Berlin

Development on the Idea of Freedom Freedom from slavery

14

Classical Liberalism

Freedom as in collective and corporate liberty rather than individual freedom

I am slave of no man

18th Century

Ancient Greece

“freedom depends on limiting the powers of government”

“The individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others.”

- J.S.Mill

Negative Freedom = an ‘Opportunity-concept’

On ‘Active Life’ in Public Realm in case of Greek Polis Vita activa

Under Greek Polis’ definition, the Pseudo public space as sterile arenas tend to clear the ‘undesirable’ beings and objects, which fall into the private realm. In this realm, citizens abide by rules set by authorities and embrace no true freedom within.

A true public realm is where people “do” politics, that is, they can act and speak to each other with a view of freedom. Unlike the internalized and predictable world of the private realm, much of the joy of the public realm comes from their surprising qualities, where the tendency is to encourage risk and uncertainties.

In the ancient Greek Polis, Vita activa (active life) = political actions of free citizen Political life was demoted to the concept of social life and a free citizen is one who’s not subject to domination by another person.

Hannah Arendt

Greek Life Public Realm

Private Realm

A realm for necessity

According to Jean-Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence.

Existentialism is the attitude to practice freedom.

Where true freedom could be gained

Where ruled by necessity = enslaved

“Every Human being in this world is limited by a situation. Yet every situation is open to freedom as long as the individual can choose himself by conferring certain significance to it. Thus the leading role can be held by our subjective orientation and not always by an external necessity. “

Violence is totally excluded from this sphere

Violence is the tool to maintain this sphere

Late 19th Century

New Liberalism

Timeless freedom which ensures the freedom for future generations through proactive action taken today

20th Century

A realm in which political activity was located

empowered citizens have the possibility to shape their own futures

Matthew Kalkman

Libertarianism

A vision of how people should be able to live their lives-as individuals, together, cooperating for the common good without compulsion and taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

“as much liberty as possible” and “as little government as necessary.”

Classical Liberalism secured the freedom of the bourgeoisies in economic terms in while suppressing the freedom of the poor and working-class

Jean-Paul Sartre

15

On ‘Actions’ and Citizenship Under the notion of citizenship, social identity is inherently linked with ‘action’.

Through action, citizenship can be tested, acknowledged and transformed in a democratic manner. One has to be engaged in ‘actions’ in the public realm in order to deliberate the values of their citizenship.

Exercising freedom and deliberating values of citizenship through actions

Defining Activism and the effects of Action

“

The reason why we are never able to foretell with certainty the outcome and end of any action is simply that action has no end.

Hannah Arendt, Human Conditions

Activism consists of the effort to improve and motivate change. It embeds interventions in public discourse, where actions are usually driven by passion and are keen to reveal facts led by a vision for the future. Their notions are usually against injustice and striving for freedom in the city, and activists are vigorous advocate of that notion. During the process of action (ie. the practice of activism), citizens involved in opening up and exploring possibilities rather than seeking always to control, produce or prevent particular outcomes. These behaviours re-evaluate well-worn notions of ‘primary uses’ and ‘necessary activities’ within the city. According to Hannah Arendt, the spatial quality of public space lies in that politics is a public activity which a citizen cannot be part of it without the sense of being present in a public space.

“ 16

“Urban is a place of communication and information... place of desire, permanent disequilibrium, seat of the dissolution of normalities and constraints, the moment of play and of the unpredictable.“ Henri Lefebvre

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

David Harvey

17

IV

Theoretical Basis

Situationists Vision - Right to the City Henry Lefebvre’s “Right to the City” not only declares primarily a right to physical urban space or right of access to a pre-existing city, but a right to an urbanistic social and mental form which is characterized by heterogeneity, encounter, simultaneity and against exclusionary spirit.

The Situationist’s psychogeographic map demonstrated the search for an encounter with otherness through sensuous drifting in the city. They suggested the ‘construction of situations’ which confront the spectacle with its own irrelevance, thus bringing about a new form of urban environment. Both Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon and Cedric Price are Utopian projects, Constant took an inclusive approach to debase any class distinctions, and Fun Palace made possible a heterogeneous range of conditions and experiences which could be readaptive and everchanging. Jacque Tati’s film Playtime depicts sterility and alienation of modern life under the standardization of architecture and urban space.

“

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

David Harvey

18

The Search for an Encounter with Otherness The Naked City, 1957 Guy Debord To derive is to make the place a sensuous extension of man, instead of being an alienated instrument of a city. The psychogeographic map created through experiential drifting conveys the message that citizens should not take the city at face value, but deconstruct and reconstruct it to refunction or make space for their own existence as well as for those hostile forces within it.

Psychogeographic Map of Paris by Guy Debord .

The drift emphasizes on noticing the way in which the environment resonate with one’s state of mind and desires, it also meant to seek out reasons for movement other than which an environment was designed.

19

Inclusive Approach to Debase Any Class Distinctions New Babylon, 1974 Constant Nieuwenhuys New Babylon is a Utopian anti-capitalist city project. The design is based on the idea that architecture itself would allow and instigate a transformation of daily reality. The goal was the creating of alternative life experiences, called ‘situations’.

The idea of New Babylon was intended to support homo ludens (‘man the player’) where complex and on-going activities will lead to constant re-invention of the city

In New Babylon, the psychic dimension of space (abstract space) works with the space of actions (concrete space) 20

Heterogeneity in Conditions and Experiences Fun Palace, 1961 Cedric Price Fun Palace is an example of an architecture with purely public space. It is a utopia of freedom which operates in a everchanging system, constantly transforming itself to fit any possible activities and experiences. The Fun Palace in its preliminary designe sits in a capitalistic world where public space is privatized by advertisements to bring out the realization of the public and private realm.

The Fun Palace is designed to be constantly under construction, as users would rearrange the elements to create new spaces that are not yet defined

The unenclosed steel structure is fully serviced by traveling gantry cranes

The Fun Palace is technically supported for interactive and fluid program to play out, no event space are prepackaged 21

Against Sterility and Alienation of Modern Life Play Time Film by Jacques Tati, 1967 Jacques Tati’s Playtime portrays an urban enclave of InternationalStyle architecture, where everything in the city is modular composing standardized units.

People are alienated in the city, and the space does not appear to function as efficient as the designers or planners hoped.

In the play, glass windows and mirrors play havoc with solidity of the architectures, such as the accidental reflection of French monuments, say the Eiffel Tower, on moving glass panels.

The two main characters demonstrated how playful and comedic moments are realized by taking a different perspective to explore and play with the city.

The film is also a study of a certain kind of resistance against a system.

22

The Space of Appearance must be continually recreated by action... where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things, but to make their appearance explicitly.

Hannah Arendt

23

V

Case Studies & Analysis

Activists & the City After the PRC’s secret detention of the outspoken art activist and critic Ai Weiwei, a young Hong Kong art activist covered the city in graffiti using stencil to promote the awareness of Ai Weiwei. Ai’s image, with the slogan “Who’s afraid of Ai Weiwei” are sprayed onto street pavement and building walls. These street art drew much attention from the public and the government, resulting in criminal investigation by the police serious crime squad, turning the art activist into a counterculture icon.

In seeking to become catalysts for change, art activists usually reposition themselves as citizen-activists and take a position with respect to the public agenda. Art activists usually act ‘in collaboration’ with the urban space and developed new strategies to ‘play’ within the city. In order to break or act against certain rules or constraints in the city, they have to explore the alternative faces of the city and thus building new relationships with the city rather than with the general public or audiences.

During the whole process of action, they involved in opening up and exploring possibilities within the existing situations, they strategically test and expand the grey zone for actions. These behaviours re-evaluate well-worn notions of ‘primary uses’ and ‘necessary activities’ in the public realm.

People can always be capricious and unpredictable. Urban spaces and the activities which occur in them could often generate disorder, spontaneity, risk and change. Activists reveal to us that urban public spaces offer a richness of experiences and possibilities for action.

Free Ai Weiwei Street Art Campaign 23-26 April 2011 24

4:05

Rather than of fixed positions, activists are always in a state of negotiation with the city, their relationship with the city induces more tension than with their audience or other citizens. Through actions, they were prompted to explore and understand the city in other points of view, and transform the alienated relation with the city.

25

Strategic Practice of an Activist - Occupy Central Scenarios on Occupy Central and Social Movement Film Festival The HSBC basement falls under a paradoxical category. It is at the same time a public and a private space, that is, a public place that is privately managed. A series of events are done by local art activists acting against privatization of public space and HSBC’s absurb special right to have their own laws on a public pavement.

By realizing the boundary and expanding the grey zone of physical space, activists try to transform situations by changing power relations. They construct situations that disrupt the ordinary and normal in order to jolt people out of their customary ways of thinking and acting.

3 1

1

2

2

3

26

Strategies

A

1

B

A

Activism begins with defining situations within existing circumstances

2

B

To mark or announce the boundary by confronting with the irrelevance

A

3

B

Embedding interventions to expand the grey zone, and destabilize the boundary by dislocation

Objects Activism employ objects or tools that address rights to the public realm. There are some common components they deployed to create any public ground as to stake claim to this city.

“Objects must answer to certain ‘needs’ generally misunderstood, to certain despised and moreover ‘transfunctinal’ functions: the ‘need’ for social life and a centre, the need and the function of play, the symbolic function of space” Henri Lefebvre

Left: Occupy Central; Above: 10th Hong Kong Social Movement Film Festival

27

To Announce the Boundaries through Confrontation Activists strategically confront with irrelevance to test and mark the boundary. These boundaries are revealed and announced, perhaps not always by the activists, but by whatever they happened to trigger.

28

To Dissolve Markers of Certainties through Dislocation Through dislocation of objects or space, ambiguity between private and public is enhanced.

The ambiguous quality dissolves markers of certainties such as building facades as rigid boundaries between interior and exterior.

Tools or furnitures used to be imprisoned in the interior, yet they enhance relationships with functions which architecture imposes.

These objects are highly interactive and adaptive, enabling them to deform and resist the environment’s existing forces. They contain endless possibilities to produce events that can be constantly experimented and reinvented.

The positioning of these objects can disturb the order and acts as a medium to produce new ways of experiencing architectural thoughts.

29

Artist on Urban Activism Gordon Matta Clark Matta Clark, best-known for his “building cuts” projects, used abandoned structures in neglected areas in the city to execute his work. He concept is the removal of thresholds of between private property and social space in Manhattan. Instead of keeping memories as a conventional monument, he recompose memory that is being hidden by the architectural surfaces.

By making his removals, the work functions as urban ‘agit-prop’ which echoes with the acts of the Situationists, whose acts are seen as public intrusions or “cuts” int he seamless urban fabric. The idea is to interrupt the induced habits of the urban masses and uncover the concealed realities. In his work ‘Conical Intersect’, he made a spiral cut into two buildings from the exterior to liberate space being hidden from the outside, a view into the void is offered to pedestrians, creating revelations of interior life to the outside space.

Through the dissolution of markers of certainty, he radically transformed the experience of their spaces, and destabilized the relations between architecture, urban space and social order.

Splitting (1974) 30

Day’s End (1975)

Bingo (1974)

Conical Intersect (1975) 31

Concept - Destabilizing the Built Surface Any built surfaces (wall / floors / fences) possess a violence that prevent bodies to a freedom of movement Climax of violence as archieved in prison (four walls surrounding the body)

Split ting

Piercing

Digging

Rending

Piranesian Space - Dissolution of Boundaries The space Gordon Matta Clark created in some of his projects can somehow relate to the Piranesian space by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Piranesian space is not defined by its boundaries, but by their relation to other spaces, ie. relationships established by the infinite possibilities of experience. In his project Conical Intersect, his removal of threshold redefined the spatial situations of the architecture and the exterior space. He deconstructed reality and transformed people’s consciousness towards perceiving space.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1750) 32

Continuum for Role of Art Activist that moves art from private to public realm

...according to Suzanne Lacy

Private

Experiencer Making the work a metaphor for relationship based on compassionate subjectivity.

The artist is able to see the world anew and alter perceptual complacency through the creation of new experiences. Nonparticipants are usually distant observer.

Theme: Make A Change 人山[人海] Artivist: Pak Sheung Chuen 3 Sept 2012 | 2:15 – 6:30pm

Following movement of the wave to perceive a new experience and awareness of human’s relationship with the sea ebb and tide rhythm

Theme: Make A Change [人山]人海 Artivist: Pak Sheung Chuen 3 Sept 2012 | 2:15 – 6:30pm

Mapping the edge of the hill with human bodies to display a new relation of human’s collective encounter with nature

Theme: Picnic at Times Square Artivist: Kit Lee 5 March 2008

Testing the perception and negotiable dimension of use of common space in a commerical setting

Theme: Occupy Central Local activists & Public 15 Oct 2011 to 11 Sept 2012

An ‘impossible space’ that test the elementary point when space liberates from property laws for common use

Reporter Information is gathered and made available to others, oftentimes with the intention of interpreting and persuading. Instead of just reflecting experience, the works are more selective and intentional.

Analyst Work based on analysis on social situations, developing provocative commentary about the social situation.

The process of production always involves negotiations between the artist and other people, usually based on negotiation with forces which own or control public space rather than those who use it.

Activist

Public

When artists reposition themselves as citizenactivists, they are contextualized and work in a state of negotiation.

Artivists transforms and allows themselves to be transformed by the space. Their behaviour reevaluates well-worn notions of ‘primary uses’ and ‘necessary activities’ within the city.

33

VI

Site Particulars Analysis and Critique of Public Space in Central Central is the cradle of Hong Kong’s capitalist development, it has developed into a corporate-dominated city over the 160 years. Central illustrates how the development of capitalism leads to sterilized public space which will inevitably be the pattern of development of Hong Kong in the near future.

The spatial evolution along the reclamation timeline is studied in this part to investigate how the built environment under capitalistic development affect the characteristics and nature of public space. Three layers of public space in Central developed along with each reclamation is studied. Threshold interfaces in relation to the street space shows how the rigid boundaries of buildings have replaced the tactile experience and ambiguous relationship between public and private. These boundaries as solid edges happen to segregate and constrain opportunities between private and public, shaping the sterilized public space instead of opening up possibilities as an in-between space.

Corporate-dominated City

Central has developed into a corporate-dominated city, where public space are of authoritarian nature.

34

The reclamation timeline in Central

35

Vi

ct or ia

Ha

rb o

ur

Three Layers of Public Space in Central

Nature of public space in Central, Hong Kong

36

Layer 1

Public Space of Authoritarian Nature

Layer 2

Public Space of the Capitalist Spectacle

Layer 3

Public Space as Shared Space

Layer 3

Gage Street Before Reclamation

Layer 2

Queen’s Road Central 1st Reclamation

Layer 1

Chater Road 2nd Reclamation

37

Space of Sterilized and Class-based Exclusive Nature Layer 1 Chater Road (land from Chater Reclamation) A realm where capitalist bureaucracy overpowered people’s right. Architecture are highly homogenized and internalized, while streets along this axis are cleared of all ‘undesirable’ existence, ie. people and objects, causing segregation. People are considered citizen so far as we abide by the rules of the authority, there is no true freedom within.

Public

38

Private

Commodified space of a capitalist’s spectacle Layer 2 Queen’s Road Central (land from 1st reclamation) Building walls at street level are dominated by extensive billboards, constructing the capitalist spectacle. Encounters are commodified and constrained within the spectacle. Public realm loses qualities generated by uncertainties where street experience is relegated to see what has become banal.

Public Private

39

Dissolution of Threshold Between Private and Public Layer 3 Gage Street (land before reclamation) Traces of unauthorized structures on external walls and building fronts appear to dissolve the markers of certainty and blur the threshold between private and public realm. The unregulated disposition and space of human scale constitute the sense of inclusiveness as well as risk and opportunities.

Public Private

40

On Threshold Interface A physical boundary shapes or provides structure to social relations. A threshold interface is where the boundary between private and public lies on, it can constrain or open up possibilities and perceptions of the in-between space. These interfaces as solid edges provides opportunities for testing and reconstitute the tension between the private and public space.

Photo Documentation of Layer 1 Space in Central

Public

Private

Rigid Threshold

41

42

43

44

Photo Documentation of Layer 3 Space Central in 1950s-70s

from online resources (see index)

Public Private

Ambiguous Threshold

45

46

47

48

“

Threshold separate and connect at the same time.

Stavros Stavrides

Sheung Wan Wing Lok Street in 1960 (perspective model based on photo image source)

Central Gage Street in 1958 (perspective model based on photo image source)

49

Playability of Public Space 1950s- 70s Hong Kong

from online resources (see index)

Evidences on how urban public spaces offer a richness of experiences and possibilities for action which the playability has ceased to exist under the capitalist development.

“

50

Urban is a place of communication and information... place of desire, permanent disequilibrium, seat of the dissolution of normalities and constraints, the moment of play and of the unpredictable.

Henri Lefebvre

51

52

It is not necessary to create a world, but the possibility of a world.

Jean-Luc Godard, 1985.

53

It is a construct of eternal anticipation to regain ‘Right to the City’

54

PART 2

Design

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Design Strategy LASTING

Structuring of Public Activities

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[M] Contained space for art activis

[M] Ground for staying / lodging

[XL] Covered space for staging

[XL] Wall / partition at greater height for projection and public viewing

[M] Sheltered ground and vertical structures to facilitate display

[S] Structures expression

for

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58

temporary

[M] Sheltered ground for gathering

[M] Ground for bazaar

[L] Ground for party / festivity

[M] Ground assemblage

for

[S/M] Ground for leisure / exercises

[S] Sheltered ground for resting

59

Strategy on Structuring of Space

Lower mobility / Lasting

Higher mobility / Temporary

60

Concept model on strategic spatial structuring for the enabling of possible public activities 61

Significance of Site: Prince’s Building

First Prince’s Building in 1904

The first generation of Prince’s Building built in 1904 (right)

Flanked by several landmark buildings including the Prince’s Building, the site has a significant political background that was never planned as such. The Statue Square is a testimony of public life and civil right struggle.

Significant political background

1967 View from Prince’s Building towards Statue Sqaure in 1967 Leftist Riots

2013

2010 62

HK’s capitalism thrived since Chater Reclamation

The Charter Reclamation was initiated by SIr Paul Chater and was seen as the starting point of Hongkong Land’s development of ‘Central’ as Hong Kong’s business district. Since then the commericial buildings erected one by one in Central, forming the foundation for capitalist development

Prince’s Building together with Queen’s Building (now Mandarin Oriental) is the earliest project of Hongkong Land Investing & Agency Co. in the Chater reclamation. (left)

First Pedestrian Bridge

The bridge between Prince’s Building and Mandarin Oriental Hotel is the first among the network of pedestrian bridges linking all HKLand commercial buildings.

Open space for all time Inland Lot 1841: The HSBC owned this land since 1882 and is saved as an open site in perpetuity. The Bank had confirmed the Government’s mutual agreement on never to build on this lot (I), stating “the site should remain an open spce for all time” 63

Storyboard

It will not be enough for an architecture to simply follow events and give them an appropriate architectural form. Rather, architecture must initiate events, even very aggressively foment them.

The architect is not, in this case, a detached professional, upholding timeless values, but an instigator, an agitator, an active participant. One does not participate by following the crisis of change, but by being part of its initiation.

Lebbeus Woods

66

The Design The Restructuring of Public Space Based on the idea that architecture of the public realm should not be designed for particular functions or activities but creates possibilities for whatever kinds of happenings, the strategy on structuring of space was generated. A self-standing structure is designed to strategically enable and expand human activities from the private to the public space. The building surfaces as boundaries between the private and public realm now redeemed ambiguity. The dislocation of public space confronts with the corporate office space, exciting a very contrasting life inside of an office building, and the struggling force may gradually dissolve the facade, contesting the public realm outside the POSPD.

Developers are allowed to add height to existing building for hollowing part of the existing office space as Public Open Space under Private Development

For large scale events

Load sharing trusses evenly distribute the added loading to six reinforced columns underneath

Crane structures and suspended trusses are provided at the upper part to carry heavy loading, allowing larger grounds for large scale activities such as performance and concerts

For manifestation

Light weight structures that extends out for hanging things, with pulley systems installed for carrying materials from lower levels up the height

Part of the office building is kept, the public activities confront with the contrasting life in the office space

For temporary activities

Levels and sizes can be rearranged according to ones’ desire. Vertical and horizontal structural members are movable, providing higher flexibility in shaping space To Alex andra

artered

dard Ch

To Stan

ilding &

Bank Bu

tel iental Ho

darin Or

To Man House

HSBC

67

A revolutionary action within the domain of culture ought not have as its goal the translation or the explanation of life, but rather its expansion.

Guy Debord 68

Public space is always in some sense, in a state of emergence, never complete and always contested.

69

The idea of public space has never been guaranteed. It has only been won through concerted struggle... struggle is the only way that the right to public space can be maintained and the only way that social justice can be advanced.

Don Mitchell

72

The architecture is affirmative of the public space as space of appearance which must be continually recreated by actions, its process of transformation is a manifestation of people’s struggle over their right to the city.

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Ground with suspended structures for large scale events

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76

for large scale evetns

Ground for expression / manifesto

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Ludic space

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The Confrontation

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Stairway leading from Statue Square

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Regain of Street Space

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Physical Models

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84

85

86

87

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Bibliography Books: Costa, Xavier, and Libero Andreotti. Situacionistas arte, politica, urbanismo : Situationists art, politics, urbanism. Barcelona: Actar :, 1996.

Sennett, Richard. The fall of public man. New York: Knopf, 19771976.

Lefebvre, Henri, Eleonore Kofman, and Elizabeth Lebas. Writings on cities. Cambridge, Mass, USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

Stevens, Quentin. The ludic city: exploring the potential of public spaces. London: Routledge, 2007.

Coates, Nigel. Narrative architecture. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2012.

Vale, Lawrence J., and S.B.Warner. Imaging the city: continuing struggles and new directions. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for UPR, 2001.

Zegher, Mark Wigley. The activist drawing: retracing situationist architectures from Constant’s New Babylon to beyond. New York: Drawing Center ;, 2001.

Woods, Lebbeus. Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act. London: Academy Editions ;, 1992. 8-18.

Haydn, Florian, and Robert Temel. Temporary urban spaces: concepts for the use of city spaces. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006.

Hou, Jeffrey. Insurgent public space: guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Abbas, M. A.. Hong Kong: culture and the politics of disappearance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Laurent Gutierrez, Valerie Portefaix. Hong Kong: A Moment of Transition : an Atlas Critic, Work in Progress 98. Hong Kong : s.n., 1998 Moss, Peter. Hong Kong: another city, another age. Hong Kong: FromAsia Books, 2002.

Girard, Greg, and Ian Lambot. City of darkness: life in Kowloon Walled City. Chiddingfold: Watermark, 1993.

Bell, Michael. Slow space. New York: Monacelli Press, 1998.

Rowe, Peter G.. Civic realism. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997.

Clark, Gordon, Corinne Diserens, Thomas E. Crow, J.R. Kirshner, and C. Kravagna. Gordon Matta-Clark. London: Phaidon, 2003.

Cook, Peter. The City, seen as a garden of ideas. New York: Monacelli, 2003.

Ferriss, Hugh. The metropolis of tomorrow. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1986.

Irish, Sharon, and Suzanne Lacy. Suzanne Lacy: spaces between. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Lee, Pamela M., and Gordon Clark. Object to be destroyed the work of Gordon Matta-Clark. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.

Lefaivre, Liane, and George Hall. Ground-up city: play as a design tool. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2007.

Lim, C. J., and Ed. Liu. Short stories: London in two-and-a-half dimensions. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011.

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Electronic Book/ Article: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/#ActFrePlu Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s theory of Action, 4.4 Action, Power, and the Space of Appearance. http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/dumb-boxes/ Lebbeus Woods. Lebbeus Woods On Living In And Thinking Outside ‘Dumb Boxes’ http://lisa.revues.org/151 Alain Le Pichon. In the Heart of Victoria: the Emergence of Hong Kong’s Statue Square as a Symbol of Victorian Achievement. p605-625 www.ulb.ac.be/psycho/psysoc/psybelg/introcitiz.pdf Margarita Sanchez-Mazas and Olivier Klein. Social Identity and Citizenship. Université Libre de Bruxelles http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=PeECT1f0SP8C&printsec=frontcover&hl=zh-TW#v=onepage&q&f=false Michael Shamiyeh, Organizing for Change/profession: Integrating Architectural thinking in other fields. Birkhäuser Architecture, 2007. http://occupycentralhk.com Occupy Central. An Open Letter to All from Occupy Central. 2012

Journal/Magazine Article: Universität Kassel. Architektur, Stadtplanung, Landschaftsplanung. Monu: magazine on urbanism. Kassel, Germany : University of Kassel, 2004.

Film: Play time. Jacques Tati. [Irvington, N.Y.] : Criterion Collection, 1967.

Ghost in the Shell. Mamoru Oshii. Shochiku, Manga Entertainment, 1995.

2046. Kar Wai Wong. Mei Ah, 2004

Index

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyCentral, 4 http://bigbugle.blogspot.hk/2011/11/blog-post_14.html, 7 http://www.gov.hk/en/theme/bf/pdf/FBTF13InfoNoteAnnex.pdf, 8 Lefebvre, Henri The Production of Space, Blackwell, 1991, 17 Historical Photos Photos by: 鍾文略, copyright @ i Concept source: http://www.wholehk.com/thread-194009-1-1.html, 45-48; 50-52

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