hive living

18 years ago

Cool photos of Hong Kong highrises: Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density

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19 Responses:

  1. sashamalchik says:
    18 years ago at 2:37 pm

    Thanks for the heads-up - will definitely drop by the gallery. Photos like that are a world away from this highrise-alergic city...
  2. flipping_hades says:
    18 years ago at 2:40 pm

    Right now they're being cocooned, just like the others.
  3. pt says:
    18 years ago at 3:07 pm

    Quite Andreas Gursky'ish.
  4. internebbish says:
    18 years ago at 3:35 pm

    Seems familiar.
  5. edlang says:
    18 years ago at 3:36 pm

    The majority of [Hong Kong's] citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings.

    Because, you know, they want to preserve the surrounding temperate forests.
    • anti_tim says:
      18 years ago at 4:18 pm

      Thats pretty much true. The surrounding area of Hong Kong is one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen and offers an amazing contrast to the densely packed city.

      A good portion of the high rises in Hong Kong go ten or more floors into the earth and are structurally built to withstand the multiple typhoons that they receive each year that bring heavy rains and winds.

      It's pretty much impossible to take a crappy picture in HK :)
  6. rosefox says:
    18 years ago at 3:37 pm

    Not like that city wasn't already on the list of places I must visit before I die, but this just bumped it up a little higher. Thanks for the pointer.
  7. fatcaterpillar says:
    18 years ago at 4:42 pm

    I've been in Hong Kong since May 2004 (I'm from Australia) and I'm just amazed by the way people live here. In Australia it's all about urban sprawl because we have so much space, and at first I just couldn't get my head around living in a box amongst all the other boxes.

    Having been amongst it for 8 months now, I love it. The thing these pictures don't show is the community involved in living in a building like this. eg: When someone gets married, they decorate the entrance to the building, so that everybody celebrates. I don't think I ever want to leave.

    Here's some shots I've taken:

    Outsides:
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/09/28/beautiful_tai_po
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/09/28/lots_of_people_live_in_there
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/10/01/more_photos_of_buildings
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/12/13/big_boxes

    Inside:
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/11/27/grand_promenade
    http://fatcaterpillar.org/blog/2004/12/21/push_my_buttons
  8. baconmonkey says:
    18 years ago at 7:49 pm

    do they have window mexicans too?

    http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/hongkongarchitecture/25.html
    • fatcaterpillar says:
      18 years ago at 9:48 pm

      It's probably worth noting that all the scaffolding in these photos is made of bamboo. If you walk down the street in HK you're likely to see a big stack of bamboo ready to make scaffolding for buildings. The guys that put it up don't wear helmets or anything, they're like little monkeys.
      • sfllaw says:
        18 years ago at 12:54 am

        And everything is held together by thin little plastic cable ties.

        When the wind blows, or someone walks on it, you can hear the entire structure creak. The first couple times I walked under these rickety platforms, I feared they would collapse on my head.
  9. sschmitt says:
    18 years ago at 12:15 am

    I just saw some of these photos at the SF Art Expo this weekend. My friends and I were staring at them for a looong time, looking for naked people in the windows. (We didn't find any.)

    What the hell does that say about me and my friends? ;-)
    • sashamalchik says:
      18 years ago at 6:37 pm

      heh - I just saw these in Koch gallery on Geary, looking for ANY people in the windows - but no, you just can't find any :)

      large scale photos are very, very impressive. thanks jwz.
  10. coldacid says:
    18 years ago at 12:28 am

    Looks like oddly textured circuitboard.
  11. spendocrat says:
    18 years ago at 4:07 am

    In #4 it looks oddly like barcodes under each window.
  12. spoonyfork says:
    18 years ago at 11:45 am

    Anyone else think of the battery fields from the original Matrix movie?

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