HK Nation 2047 - Border / Architecture

HK NATION 2047

BORDER/ARCHITECTURE

2018 SPRING SEMESTER / instructor: sony devabhaktuni /

This project asks a series of question about the border and architecture.

In the case where the political border between Hong Kong and China dissolves in 2047, how could architecture resist the debordering? How could space itself reforms the border? What is the afterlife of the architecture that was once defined as the border by the politicians? When border is reconceptualized in architectural scale, it becomes something that exhibits spatial characters and generates architectural implications. The contradictions in these scenarios become a spatial manifesto of the socio-political relationship between hong kong and china.

exhibition: “Drawing for the Design Imaginary” - ACSA USA 2018 HKU degree show and public review 2018

- 1842 - - 1860 -

treaty of nanking《南京條約》

convention of peking《北京條約》

- 1898 - - 1997 -

convention between the united kingdom and china regarding on the extension of hong kong territory

《中英展拓香港界址專條》

order of the state council of the people’s republic of china no.221

《中華人民共和國國務院令第 221 號》

- 2018 -guanzhou-shenzhen-hong kong express rail link (co-location) bill《廣深港高鐵 ( 一地兩檢 ) 條例草案》

“the Mainland Port Area is to be regarded as an area lying outside Hong Kong but lying within the Mainland.”

border of hong kong

BORDER AS LINE; BORDER AS ARCHITECTURE; DE-BORDERING; ARCHITECTURE AS BORDER.

/ This project asks a series of question about the border and architecture.

“the boundary is not a spatial fact with sociological consequences, but a sociological fact that forms itself spatially.” – Georg Simmel (“The Sociology of Space”, p142)

The border has always existed as a line on a map. in particular, it is a line without thickness. bordering is understood as something that happens at the territorial scale.

However, with the ‘co-location’ joint checkpoint scheme proposed by the central government and the hong kong government, an area, named as the mainland port area, within the underground terminus situated at the heart of hong kong is politically defined as an area ‘lying outside hong kong but lying within the mainland china.’ this implied that a new border is established inside the terminus and it has radically changed the concept of border in 2018. the border is no longer a line, but thickened and dimensionalized as architecture and space. it is reconceptualized and redefined at architecutral scale.

This architecture becomes a victim in this action of bordering where the political is mapped onto the architectural.

In the case where the political border between Hong Kong and China dissolves in 2047, how could architecture resist the debordering? How could space itself reforms the border? What is the afterlife of the architecture that was once defined as the border by the politicians? When border is reconceptualized in architectural scale, it becomes something that exhibits spatial characters and generates architectural implications. The contradictions in these scenarios become a spatial manifesto of the socio-political relationship between hong kong and china. /

border

space

2018-border as architecture / 2047-architecture as border

elements as border / contradiction