Political Archipelago Repoliticizing Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong
Dora Yui Kei Lo, B. Arch Candidate ‘19 Advisor | Matthew Celmer Syracuse University School of Architecture 12.13.2018 1
Content
PART 1: INTRODUCTION Disciplinary and Theoretical Background _ 6-7 Thesis Statement _8-9 Political History of China and Hong Kong_10-11
PART 2: UMBRELLA REVOLUTION Leading Up to the Umbrella Revolution_14-17 Temporary Protest Structure_18-35
PART 3: ERASURE_MATERIAL STUDIES Materializing Time_38-39 Material Sequences_ 40-47 Material Traces and catalogue_ 48-51
PART 3: OPERATIONS_TRACING Absence, Presence and Traces_52-55 Analytical Drawings of Case Studies_56-59
2
PART 4: TRACING_ON SITES Archipelago Drawing and Quote_ 62-63 i. Mongkok Streets Site Documentation _64-67 Intervention_68-73 i. Yee Wo Street Site Documentation _74-77 Intervention_78-83 i. Government Headquarter Site Documentation _84-87 Intervention_ 88-91 i. Victoria Harbor Site Documentation _ 92-93 Intervention_94-97
Bibilography_ 98
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4
1
Introduction
5
Background
From the Greek polis to the later Roman citivas, the problem of democratic political public realm lies in its negotiation with external forces. These external forces include but are not limited to urbs (physical foundation of the city) and nomos /lex (laws).1 Starting in the 19th century, industrialization began to rapidly corrode the democratic political realm. Capitalism and urbanization brought in insatiable production goals and endless expansion of the city. They then became the dominating forces shaping not only the political public sphere but also the entire city: “…economy transcend the boundaries between public space and private space,… as the principal mode of governance for the whole of urbanity. The essence of urbanization is therefore the destruction of any limit, boundary… [that is not] the infinite, compulsive repetition of its own…”2 Nowadays, the democratic political public realm further degrades and dematerializes. Governments and corporations have depoliticalised and privatized public space; they are now just empty open space that feed on nostalgia of its past. The residues of the public realm has retreated inwards so much that it detaches itself away from the city. The public realm will eventually disconnect from the real and exist only in the virtual space of the Internet.
1. Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011. 2. Ibid, Aureli. 6
Archizoom Associati, No-Stop City, 1969.
7
Manifesto
This project aims to re-politicize the public sphere of post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. Umbrella Revolution was one of the latest defining events of democratic struggles in Hong Kong. Like other protests, civil disobedience and revolutions, Umbrella Revolution was more than just “organized public dissents”; it was an experiment of an alternative democratic sphere for agonistic struggles. The occupation temporarily altered, reoriented, disoriented or debilitated the existing boundaries and thresholds in the city; it resisted the logic of the city to create a space of exception. However, these temporary alterations did not leave significant permanent imprints to the city. At the end, these temporary traces of an alternative democratic sphere are turned into the banal background of the everyday life. The city once again falls back into the orchestrated amnesia as part of their capitalist fantasy.
3. Sagan, Hans Nicholas. “Specters of ’68: Protext, Policing, and Urban Space. “ PHD diss., University of Califronia, Berkeley. 2015. 8
The Political Archipelago is a provocation of permanently temporal resistance to the city. This resistance anticipates its certain erasure, and evolves from its remnants.
The Political Archipelago consists of four “islands of exceptions� in Hong Kong. They were previous occupied sites during the Umbrella Revolution. Each island is a unique fragment of the previous alternative democratic sphere. This project proposes various operations of tracing to turn these intangible fragments into persistent tools for political change.
9
A Political History of China and Hong Kong Hong Kong was colonized by British Empire under the Convention of Peking after China’s defeat in the Opium War in 1860. It has “The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by undergone drastic cultural, social and political changes under the universal suffrage…in accordance with democratic procedures.” rule of the British Empire for almost a century. Hong Kong became a separate entity from China; it is the fusion of the East and West. Universal suffrage, which is the right to vote of all citizens, has become one of the major demands from the Hong Kong citizens. Hong Kong, however, was not unaffected by the political turmoil The Central Government’s refrain from a democratic election in Mainland China. The Cultural Revolution (1966-67) and has sparked public outcry from the society. The Hong Kong Tiananmen Massacre (1989) has thousands of refugees from Government has also attempted to reinforce measures to restrict Mainland to Hong Kong. The Tiananmen Massacre sparked dissents from the society. One of the key events was the attempt one of the first democratic campaigns in Hong Kong that set the to establish Article 23 of Basic Law in 2003, which could potentially foundation for future democratic development. give unlimited power and censorship to the government: Hong Kong was returned to China on 1st July 1997. The Chinese Central Government and United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Declaration, which promise the citizens of Hong Kong a high level of autonomy for 50 years. Under the One Country, Two Systems, Hong Kong and China are two separate jurisdictions. Hong Kong can inherit the former British governmental system with separation of powers: Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. The Executive includes the Chief Executive (5-year term) and the Executive Council. Legislative includes the 70-member Legislative Council. Judiciary includes the Court of Final Appeal and other lower courts. However, the Chief Executive has to be appointed by the Central Government, and the Hong Kong Garrison is still in charge by the Central Military Commission from the Chinese Central Government.
“shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, session, sedition, subversion against the Central Government,…, to prohibit foreign political organization or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region,… establishing ties with foreign political organization or bodies.” The attempt to legislate the Article 23 has sparked massive demonstration on 1st July that paralyzed the heart of the city. The political demonstration later evolved into an annual parade that hundreds and thousands participate.
As the end of the 50-year of high autonomy is looming, the Chinese Central Government tightens its grip on its subjects and Hong Kong Government. The major political events have projected possible assimilation of Hong Kong into “another Chinese city” Nowadays, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong is not selected in less than 50 years. The only way that Hong Kong citizens based on democratic procedures according to International can safeguard their human rights is to have a government that standards. The Chief Executive is elected by a small group of is representative of their political interest. Umbrella Revolution in voters, who are then elected by a selected group of professionals. 2014 was the latest political event in Hong Kong in response to This procedure is against Article 45 in Basic Law of Hong Kong, the denial of universal suffrage in 2017. which was part of the agreement between United Kingdom and Chinese Central Government. According to Article 45 in Basic Law, 10
1997
Hong Kong
1984 One Country, Two Systems Proposal
Hong Kong Returned to China from Britian
1860 Convention of Peking: Kowloon Peninsula colonized
Umbrella Revolution
Demonstration against Article 23 2010 Five Constitutencies Referendum
1861 New Territories colonized
China
2014
2003
1927-36 Chinese Civil War
1966-67 Cultural Revolution
2005 Citizens’ Radio raided
1989 Protest
1956 “Double Day Riot”
1978 Chinese Economic Reform
2015 Causeway Bay Books Disappearance
2010 Liu Xiaobo awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1989
Tiananmen Massacre
2008
1949-Present Qing Dynasty
1912-49 Republic of China
1949-76
Mao Era
Liu Xiaobo, Chapter 08
People’s Republic of China
1976-89
Deng Era
1989-2002
2002-2012
Jiang Era
Hu Era
2011
2014
Jasmine Student Revolution Movement (Taiwan) 2012 - present
Xi Era
Timeline of major political events in the contemporary history of China and Hong Kong.
16 Jan
‘Civil Disobedience’s Deadliest Weapon’, Benny Tai
28 Mar
Occupy Central with Love and
28 Sep
31 Dec Pro-democracy Rally
1 Jan
Civil Referendum, 62,196 voted
Occupation Begins (60K)
16 Jun
Civil Referendum,
22 Sep
11
21 Oct First and Only
30 Nov-1 Dec Student
2017
Universal Sufferage??
12
2
Umbrella Revolution a case study
13
Leading up to the Umbrella Revolution
Umbrella Revolution is an act of civil disobedience that took place in Hong Kong in 2014. It was a 3-month occupation started outside of Central Government Complex, which is the Hong Kong Government headquarter. The occupation was a final act after a series of attempts to demand government for universal suffrage in 2017. The movement started to take into shape on 16 January 2013. Dr. Benny Tai, one of the three leaders of Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), proposed civil disobedience as a new form of protest to pressure the government to introduce universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Dr. Benny Tai, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming and Chan Kinman founded Occupy Central with Love Peace on 28 March 2013. The organization proposed to peacefully occupy the main financial districts in Hong Kong if the government does not conform the election to democratic procedures of international standard. OCLP organized many forums and rallies to promote their value to the public. The critical moment of the movement was on 31 August 2014, the day when the Chinese Central Government denied universal suffrage of Chief Executive in 2017. The decision sparked outrage in the city. Student-led political organizations, which were independent of OCLP, started citywide student strike. They also started occupying the plaza outside of government headquarters on 26 September 2014. The police started violent crackdown with tear gas and rubber bullets on the peaceful occupants on 26 and 27 September. The police was even armed with AR15 rifles, which stirred up the horrific memories of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 of many. The police violence angered and motivated even more citizens to participate in the occupation. In view of the situation, OCLP announced to start the occupation early on 28th September. The movement was also named Umbrella Revolution when a photograph of a protestor defending himself against tear gas with an umbrella was published on the cover of TIME Magazine. The movement continued to spread from Admiralty, where the government headquarters is located, to other parts of the city. The other two locations are Mongkok and Causeway Bay. At the peak of occupation, there were more than 100,000 occupants. Umbrella Revolution pressured conversation between the government officials and the occupants, but with no success. The occupation lasted for months and the protestors felt fertile to sustain the occupation. It ends when the occupied site was cleared and many were voluntarily and involuntarily arrested in mid December 2014. The streets once again returned to the daily hustle and bustle. 14
China
1927-36 Chinese Civil War
1966-67 Cultural Revolution
1978 Chinese Economic Reform
2010 Liu Xiaobo awarded Nobel Peace Prize
1989
Tiananmen Massacre
1949-Present Qing Dynasty
1912-49
1949-76
Republic of China
16 Jan
‘Civil Disobedience’s Deadliest Weapon’, Benny Tai
Occupy Central with Love and Peace is founded 9 Jun
Delibration Day
Deng Era
Civil Referendum, 62,196 voted
23 Feb Press Freedom Rally
2002-2012
Jiang Era
(60K)
16 Jun
Civil Referendum, 800K
22 Sep Citywide Student Strike Begins
1 Jul
Pro-democracy Rally, Charter Road Sit-in
29 Jul
OCLP /HKSARG Organizers Submit Political Reform Recommendation
28 Oct Street Booth Set up
2014 2014
29 Mar
9 Mar
(4K)
Police Crackdown
Cyber Attack on the OCLP’s online referedum site 20 JuL
White Paper: Chief Executive must be‘Patriotic’
26 Sep Attempted to Reclaim Civic Plaza
26-27 Aug
16 Jun
Global Times and Mouthpieces Attack the campaign
Xi Era
Occupation Begins
Delibration Day: Concluding Remarks
Prodemocracy Rally
2012 - present
Hu Era
28 Sep
9 Mar
1 Jul
2013
1989-2002
31 Dec Pro-democracy Rally
1 Jan
28 Mar
1976-89
Mao Era
Jasmine Student Revolution Movement (Taiwan)
Liu Xiaobo, Chapter 08
People’s Republic of China
2014
2011
2008
AntiOCLP Campaign launched
(7K) [Tear Gas, Bullets,
31 Aug Universal Sufferage Denied
Timeline of Umbrella Revolution
15
29 Sep “Umbrella Revolution” is named; multiple boycotts across the city; multiple occupations 30 Sep Three Occupation Sites; (100K+)
21 Oct First and Only Conversation between Students and Government 23 Oct 15 Nov Banner Bombing Begins
2 Oct
Government agree to communicate with Students
Student Representative were banned from visiting Beijing for direct conversation with Central Government
30 Nov-1 Dec Student organizers led armed protestors to surround government headquarter; failed. 3 Dec Occupy Central organizers voluntarily surrender to law
15 Dec
Admiratly
14 Oct 17 Oct
Police Police Attempted Attempted Clearance Clearance
3 Oct 29 Aug Anti-UR Police retreated; Attack on Protesters Parlay
Police abused of power; water cannon, protestors retreated from Lung Wo Road to Hai Yi Road
25-26 Nov
Injunction to Clearance, Agyle Street
[ Anti-terrorist Police Unit, Tear Gas] Clearance done by afternoon. Counteracted by mobile occupation by citizens.
15 Dec Remaining occupiers retreated or voluntarily surrender to law
11 Dec Clearance in Admiralty
Clearance in Causeway Bay
(200 arrested)
These previous occupied sites together confronted the city as its alternative democratic sphere. The occupied sites were spaces of exceptions in the city that resist and deviate from its general conditions.
Unbounded by the permanence of the city, these spaces of exceptions were where different actors and forces of the city could enter into the circle to negotiate their frictions into coexistence. The Umbrella Revolution was a state of permanent temporality that refuses an absolute domination of the city.
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PROTEST: OCCUPY CENTRAL Dora Yui Kei Lo ARC500 Spaces of Exception 100
200
300
OCCUPANTS FEET
SPECTATORS OFFICE WORKERS PEDESTRIANS POLICE
Occupy Central was an act of civil disobedience to demand universal sufferage in Hong Kong. Millions of people first camped outside of government headquarter and finally paralyzed the financial district. The growing occupation resists the existing context until a new public realm is formed where different adversaries can actively contend and negotiate with each other.
From Space of Exception, Spring 2018, instructed by Lindsay Harkema.
GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTER OCCUPY MOVEMENT STAGE CROSSING PUBLIC ARTWORK RESTROOMS SUBWAY STATION EXIT RESOURCES/RECYLING
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Temporary Pro test Structures
This project started by looking into Umbrella Revolution as a case study. The occupation has altered many aspects of the city temporarily: crossings, traffic pattern, landmark, circulation, programs, and many more. These alternations are however temporary; they do not tend to leave permanent imprints onto the existing city. The government has cleared out all the remaining structures, posters or protestors that remained on site. If the umbrella revolution cannot leave permanent impact onto the city, what can be the progressive tool for future force of urban resistance in the city? The project further investigates the temporary protest structures and their significance in the movement. By documenting and cataloging these structures and components, the project reveals how they repurposed the infrastructure in public space. These structures are also constantly assembled and disassembled, put together and taken apart. The reasons are simple: their user needs fluctuates by the number of occupants everyday, and police and other anti-occupation protestors constantly remove them. The act of construction is therefore significant for the occupants. It is an act of resisting the spatial logic of the city. It is an experiment of an alternative democratic society in the center of this endless urbanity created by the governmental and capitalist authority.
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DESK LAMPS
BAMBOO STIKCS 1” WOOD
CHAIRS JERSEY BARRIER
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PLASTIC FRUIT CART
CARDBOARD BOX
SAND BAGS
CONSTRUCTION FENCE
WATER-FILLED BARRIER
POLICE SECURITY FENCE
TABLE
DESK LAMP
CHAIR
Components of protest structures: as-found, brought-in and repurposed. 20
TRAFFIC CONE
GRATE
BRICKS
CANVAS
TENT
BAMBOO
WOODEN PALLET
UMBRELLA
OFFICE WATER TANK
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TABLE
DESK LAMP
BRIDGE TYPE I
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DESK LAMP
CHAIR
OFFICE WATER TANK
BRIDGE TYPE II
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BARRICADE TYPE I
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BARRICADE TYPE II
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ROAD
ROAD BLOCK I TYPE I ROADTYPE BLOCK
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CK D BLOCK TYPE IITYPE II
ROAD BLOCK ROAD BLOCK TYPE IIITYPE III
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OFFICE WATER TANK
WOODEN PALLET
CHAPEL
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OODEN PALLET
UMBRELLA
TEMPLE
29
STUDY AREA
30
H
REA
HEAD-WASHING BOOTH
31
Public Art : Umbrella Man 32
Public Art : Lennon Wall 33
Public Art : Umbrella Stand 34
Public Art : Hundred Umbrellas 35
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3
Erasure_ Material Studies
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Materializng Time
To begin with, I conducted a series of material studies to to build up a catalog of the materiality of traces. I operated on various materials, including copper, ceramic clay, plaster, ink, graphite and more, and experiment on how they change over time. These photographs capture the perceivable material changes in the each tracing process. Each process is at once construction and destruction of the object. Frame by frame, they also unroll the sequence of time in each process that can be uniquely metaphorical of the movement, events and symbolism on the sites. This board shows all results of the material studies and earlier studies of them on the sites. The findings from these tracing processes are then used as design reference in each island.
38
39
40
hammering and wrapping
repoussĂŠ
sanding and dapping
stampling
patina 02
clay
patina 01
copper
41
wrapping
embedding
cladding
poking
copper and clay
knotting and binding
42
pulling inked clay
ink on wood + water ink frottage
graphite + water
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ink
graphite on clay imprint
44
graphite on wood, removed
sgraffito
ink frottage
45
graphite
46
plaster_04
plaster_03
plaster_02
plaster_01
47
hybrid _plaste, ink , foam and wood
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49
50
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3
Operations_ Tracing
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Operations of Traces
The temporary act of resisting spatial logic of the city was eventually erased by the government and time. The tangible evidence of the alternative democratic sphere was removed and forgotten. To combat such amnesia of the political past, the project dived into exploring how to turn the temporary into permanent. The project comes to understand traces as the incomplete, fragmented and partial of the subject. It is neither the absence nor the presence; it is neither tangible nor intangible. The traces are a result of simultaneous construction and destruction. It fluctuates between the solidity of existing and vacuum of non-existing. Through analyzing and catagorizing the following memorial objects, the project extracts possible operations on the traces, and hence ways to turn the trace of the democratic struggles into permanent progressive tools of change. This project has distilled four operations upon the study: abstraction, absence suggests presence, defamiliarization and camouflage.
traces - Incomplete, fragmented, partial - between absence nor presence - at once a process of construction and destruction
presence
absence - Intangible - Unrepresentable
- Tangible - Existence of Something
[abstraction]
[absence suggests presence]
Simplification of presence to a concise, recognizable figure
Using the negative of the subject to define and suggest the subject itself
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[defamiliarize] Dissociation of the perceivable from symbolism and meanings; disorientation.
[camouflage] Dissolve the subject into the context; banal and unexceptional; a process of rediscovering
[Camouflage] To dissolve the subject into the banal and ordinary contexts
[Defamiliarize] To disorient and/or dissociate the subject from its percievable meanings
[Subtraction] To use the absence of the subject to suggest the presence of it
[Abstraction] To reduce or simplify the subject into a figure
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[Camouflage]
Jumping Castle War Memorial, Cockatoo Island
Camouflage
Figure
Shooting of Michael Brown, Ferguson, MO.
HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT AUG 9, 2014 R.I.P.
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[Defamiliarization]
Casa della Memoria, Milan
Image
Closeness to Building
Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin
Height/ Relation to Context
Traces/ Timeline
1. Original Berlin Wall
3. Site
2. Death Strip
Context
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[Subtraction]
Monument Against Fascism, Hamburg-Harburg
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1990
1991
1992
Height
+/- Volume
Tracing Process
World Trade Center Memorial, New York City
1973
2001
Relation to City
Timeline
Traces
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2014
1993
[Abstraction]
Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin
Original Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall Memorial
Traces in City
Central Saint Martin, London
New School
Imprint
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Trace
Memory of Shed
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5
Tracing_ On Sites This project proposes a political archipelago that confronts the tides of the governmental and capitalistic authority of the city. Through this continuous making/unmaking process upon the traces of political sites, these “islands� are the anchor points for future force of urban resistance to the city.
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“ The islands of the archipelago, on the other hand, confront the forces of urbanization by opposing to urbanization’s ubiquitous power their explicitness as forms, as punctual, circumscribed facts, as stoppages”.
Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011), xii. 62
TAMAR PARK, GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTER, ADMIRATLY
YEE WO STREET, CAUSEWAY BAY
02
DEFAMILIARIZATION 02 03
03
SUBTRACTON
04
04
ABSTRACTION
01
ARGYLE STREET & NATHAN ROAD, MONG KOK
CAMOUFLAGE
01
63
01
Mongkok Streets
Background The Mongkok Occupy Zone was occupied from 28 Setember to 27 November for 61 days. Located across the Victoria Harbor from the other two sites, the Mongkok area was an old district with tenement housings (tanglau) intercepted by skyscraper trendy malls. For most part of the district, the ground level are shops and vendors while the uppers levels are homes of the lower to middle class. The streetscape is full of overhanging neon signs and billboards with no lack of traffic. With both local flea market and high-end malls, Mongkok attracts many shoppers of all age and backgrounds. The densely populated district is also home to many middle and high schools and many nightclubs, thus the populations of the pedestrians are leaning towards teenagers and young adults. Mongkok was also infamous of its past as gang-infested grassroots area. The many pubs and nightclubs around the area built up a thriving nightlife that has historically attracted crimes and gang culture. Many movie and literature work also framed the image of Mongkok. The gang culture, however, still exists till today. The crowded and narrow streets of Mongkok presented new challenges to the occupants. The occupants have occupied the wider portion of the district, the Nathan Road, which is the main artery of Mongkok and other neighboring districts. It is also the occupy zone with occupants that have more attitudes than the others. There are much more notorious confrontation between the occupants and the police, and many have suspected or blamed on gang involvement.
camouflage
64
65
66
MONGKOK ROAD
FIFE ROAD
ARGYLE STREET
NELSON STREET
M C PA R S O N P L AY G R O U N D
N AT H A N R O A D
PORTLAND STREET
SHANGHAI STREET
SOY STREET
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SAI YEUNG CHOI STREET SOUTH
SHANTUNG STREET
SAI YEE ST GARDEN
0
200
OCCUPIED AREA
Site 1 is camouflaged into the crowded streets of Mongkok. Masked by its daily hustle and bustle, the commercial-residential local neighborhood has forgotten the mobile protests popped up in streets corner once in a while during the Umbrella Revolution. Since the Umbrella Revolution, the government has been restrictive about display of anything anti-establishment. But THEY have always been there to remind the citizens of the past. As the Umbrella Revolution has become the new icon for democratic struggles in Hong Kong, THEY have hidden figures and symbols of the movement are imprinted onto walls in alleys. One will never notice that if you walk by quickly. Only when you pause you will see the silhouette of the protest happened in that particular place. Sometime THEY will even turn these remnants into postcards on the wall. If you start looking closely, you will see how these remnants have tucked into the everyday life of the people, hidden amongst the domestic objects at home to remind them of their democratic struggles.
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Indiividual Work, Streets of Mongkok, 2017. 69
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02
Yee Wo Street
Background The Causeway Bay Occupy Zone was occupied from 28 September to 15 September for 79 days. The occupied zone is a wide road cutting across a middle to up-scale commercial district, intersected by the tramline. The site is surrounded by more than 10-story high commercial buildings. The faรงade of these buildings are all covered with enormous billboards, and the buildings cantilevered over the sidewalks. The occupants occupied on one way of the main road, but they had occupied the entire road at the peak of the occupation. The site is much smaller than Admiralty. As the main road is one of the major routes for double-decked buses, the occupation have caused some disturbance to the traffic pattern and inconvenient to the locals and shoppers. The occupy zone is closed to the subway station and therefore attracts equal numbers of spectators and participants. The nearby commercial malls again were convenient for obtaining resources for the movement.
defamilirization
74
75
0
200 76
HYSAN PLACE
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N
PI
NG
RO
AD
JA
RD
IN E CR
WO
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RD IN
EET
JA
STR
E BA ZA AR
S
YEE BU BU S BU S
C A U S E WAY P L A C E
ING
S
S
77 NN
EET
PE
BU
BU
SOGO
A SUG
TR R S
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S
TR N S BU
PA SO TER
T EE
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GL T ES AD 50
Site 2 was on the route of the annual July 1 Demonstration; it was also a primary occupied site during Umbrella Revolution. It is historically an integral place of the democratic development in Hong Kong. It is where the first July 1 Demonstration started in 2003 that continues to be reused every year for the annual demonstration. The 2-mile demonstration parade attracts hundreds and thousands of citizens yearly to protest on the street. It is almost like a festival. In Site 2 is a busy 5-lane road with A circular pedestrian floats above all the traffic and the trams. Once every year during the demonstration, THEY will put the walls up to close off the main road for the demonstration. THEY will brush off the dust and dirt of the copper parade signage on the ground. THEY will roll up the copper barricades and inflate the balloon roadblocks. By doing so, they exaggerate and thicken the physical and visual barrier between the urban context and the protest site. The arrangement of these reflective walls reflects and deflects the image of the urban context to confuse and disorient. The patterns on the ground guide the protesters to organize movement, stations and tents as they move along on the route. After the demonstration, it goes back to normal. THEY settle all the walls back into the ground. If you get on a tram and ride by, you will only see the metallic patterns on the ground glimmering through the dirt and dust of the road. 78
79
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03
Government
Headquarter
Background The Admiralty Occupy Zone was the first occupied among the three major occupied zones. It was first occupied on 26 September 2014 and was cleared by 11 December 2014. The total occupied period was 77 days. The occupied zone is the two-way main roads right outside of the Hong Kong Government headquarter in Admiralty, the central financial district in Hong Kong. The high-traffic main road was the main artery of the district and the city, and the occupied movement has forced new traffic pattern around the site. The proximity of the occupation to the headquarter is symbolically significant. It is also a sarcastic statement as the original design of the headquarter is intend to show “the door of the government is always welcome to its citizens”. The occupation zone has the greatest area among the three occupied zone. It requires many strategic defense tactics since the site is the most opened among the three. The occupants have experimented with different barricades and roadblocks for different sections of the road. The occupation zone also has “The Grand Stage”, a platform for organizer to announce and broadcast important messages to the occupants. This feature distinguishes the occupied zone as the more organized among the three. The surrounding commercial buildings provide amenities such as restaurants, bathrooms and water that help with sustaining the movement. The many shop owners from around the occupied sites also helped with the occupants by providing resources to them. The organized and well-maintained public art attracts many visitors in the site, and the popularity helps with spreading and sustaining the occupants.
subtraction
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VICTORIA HARBOR
CENTRAL HARBORFRONT PROMENADE
TIM WAH ROAD
TA M A R PA R K
RC
OU
LUNG WUI ROAD
EXECUTIVE OFFICES
RT
RO
AD
N T R
EE
DR
IVE
HA
LC COMPLEX
TIM MEI ROAD
LUNG WO ROAD
CO
TTO
0
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100
0
200
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The annual demonstration ends outside of Government Headquarter. It is a harbor front skyscraper that was designed to formally symbolize the open-door policy of the government. The Government Headquarter is elevated over a Tamar Park that was designated for public use. Ironically, the Government Headquarter is everything but a welcoming authority. After 3-month of occupied movement on the highway outside of the headquarter, all the public areas are fenced up and guarded by security. They are now just empty lots of false promises. The loss of a truly democratic space that could have enormous impacts on the government is monumental. The uproars from the public forced the government to construct a new ‘public space’ outside of Tamar. The new ‘public space’ continues from Tamar Park and slopes down from the government and glide into the Victoria Harbor. The third “island of exception” is sunken below the water as subtraction of Tamar Park. Using subtraction, its void suggests the absence of a truly democratic space and opens up for the public to fill its void. It is now the most heavily used protest site. But the government has never stop restricting the space. Everyday the seawater washes down the walls to wash away protesters and their protest structures. The protesters staggers to keep all their belongings and protest structures in place, but some eventually are washed away. After each protest, the imprints of the protest structures are transformed by salt and copper into permanent patina on the site. The next protest are traced over the previous one. 88
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04
Victoria Harbor
abstraction
92
93
The protest structures are all eventually removed and washed down into site 4. It is the final and only archive of all the democratic struggles in Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. All of the tangible evidence of protests are incinerated in site 4 and washed down the sea. Their ashes has combined with the sea water over time and slowly they seeps into the ground into an abstract figure of all the democratic struggles.
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Bibilography Theses/Design Theory 1. McDonough, Tom. The Situationist and the City. London: New Left Books, 2009. 2. Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2011. 3. Fowler, Justin. “Agonism, Consensus, And The Exception: On The Newest Monumentalists”(2009), in The 4th International Conference of the International Forum of Urbanism. 4. Sarkis, Hashim. “On The Line Between Procedures And Aesthetics” in The Pragramatist Imagination, Thinking About Things in the Making. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001. 5. Mostafavi, Mohsen. “Agonistic Urbanism” in Ethics of the Urban: The City and the Spaces of the Political. Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2017. 6. Barnes, Elliott and Siegel, Edward. The Cornell Journal of Architecture (Fall 1983). 7. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1992. 8. Koolhaas, Rem. “Junkspace”. MIT Press Journal, no. 100. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. 9. Borra, Bernardina. “ ‘Co-operation Rules the World. The Community Rules the Individual’: On Hannes Meyer” in The City As a Project. Edited by Per Vittorio Aureli. Berlin: Ruby Press, 2016. 10. Low, Setha and Smith, Neil. The Politics of Public Space. New York: Routledge, 2006. 11. Aureli , Pier Vittorio. Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism. New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. 12. Mictchell, Don. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The Guilford Press, 2003.
Philosophy 13. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958. 14. Benjamin, Walter. The Arcade Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. 15. Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1985. 98
17. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto. London: Penguin Books,1985. 18. Young, Iris Marion. Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 19. Mouffe Chantel. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. New York: Verso, 2013. 20. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Case Studies 21. Abujidi, Nurhan. Urbicide in Palestine: Space of Oppression and Resilience. New York: Routledge, 2014. 22. Bald, Sunil. “Memories, Ghosts, and Scars: Architecture and Trauma in New York and Hiroshima”. Journal of Transnational American Studies. Santa Barbara: American Culture and Global Context Center, 2011. 23. Gourevitch, Phillip. “Behold Now Behemoth”. Harper’s Magazine (July 1993): 55-62.
Others 24. McCann, Rachel. “Breached Boundaries”. Log 42 (Winter/Spring 2018):153-154. 25. Ingersoll, Richard and Kostof, Spiro. World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 26. Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1972.
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