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A Discourse on Architecture and Identity. Procuring Collective Memory: An Institute for The Transient

Part 2 Dissertation 2013
Ching Kan Chan
 Chinese University of Hong Kong | China
As a local citizen of Hong Kong born in 1980s, it is difficult to comprehend who exactly we are or what represented us: traces in the built environment hardly speak to us other than a coastal image of glittering office towers celebrating the agenda of capitalism. Cultural heritage and museums exhibiting the past hardly conveys a sense of belonging to our present community. The thesis is an attempt to understand why and how such happens.

By understanding how identity is manifested in the built environment, the thesis questions how local identity can be sustained with social progress by following the course of history. It is a journey of continuous discovery and appropriation of history in order to fabricate a cultural logic that is local specific.

It consists of three episodes:
I. a research on architecture and identity in relation to capitalistic society;
II. a retroactive manifestation of an unstated project spanning over 200 years that shapes the uniqueness of Wanchai as known today; and
III. a design project that dwells on the research and logic as a projection of history.

Episode I aims to formulate a holistic understanding of how identity is related to the built environment and identify challenges and difficulties of how ‘identities’, whether as given by history or manifesting local livelihood, are conveyed and translated into the built environment in relation to present socio-economical condition.

Episode II is an allegorical construct to reveal the logic underlying the development of Wanchai since the city was found in 1845. The construct, the depository of the Otherness, is a recollection of historical events and evidences to support the plot of the unstated project: a culture of the transient; an identity manifesting in the built environment that contributed by local public without direct governance, regulation and imposition, which celebrates the local livelihood and progresses with time.

Episode III is an attempt to project the logic in order to sustain local identity with social progress; a procurement of local identity before it falls into oblivion.

Ching Kan Chan
Tutor(s)
Marisa Yu
2013
Hong Kong Piratenstrasse dated1882 by Henri Dieth
Panoramic drawings published in Paris l'Univers illustré in 1891
Postcard from China dated 1845 by anonymous showing local activities at street junction
Harbour front of Wanchai before the third time of reclamation dated 1967, Postcard issued by Tom Jackson to London from Victoria Hong Kong dated 1972
Sprawled from the market building to Wanchai Road, the neighbourhood was generally known as 'Wanchai Market', dated 1978
Postcard from Hong Kong, dated 1974, Wanchai after reclamation with the just completed Hong Kong Telecom ouse
Building ages of mixed use buildings in the area existed before first reclamation in 1843 along Queen's Road East
Development of Wanchai District since it was found
Current condition of Wanchai
Process of procurement
Component strategy, individuality under a common system
Communal space derived from upgrade at original backlane area
Landale Street looking towards Queen's Road East with external circulation core at far end
Overview above Landale Street towards Queen's Road East with roof unit in module, new connexion and circulation core with Hopewell Centre as background
Gloucester Road looking towards Admiralty showing Wanchai Revenue Tower on the right and circulation core on the left. the threshold of the institute
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