I am not sure why I am continually fascinated by this place.<p>I suppose, having written the old Mac computer game Glider, it might be obvious why I am drawn to it since it kind of looks like an insanely large "house" that someone might have created for the game.<p>On the other hand I feel like I have had dreams in spaces that I imagine are like this — and I feel like these dreams may have pre-dated the game I wrote?<p>Or maybe it's a kind of <i>Blade Runner</i> vibe of the future that the city gives off — or like the early police chase scene in <i>Chung King Express</i> ... [1]<p>I imagine it as having both good and bad qualities. I imagine crime is always present — but that too exploration is always there too. A younger me would have loved to try to get lost, try to find my way home.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/0uMekCFDnkI" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/0uMekCFDnkI</a>
Don't miss the link to the full res cross-section:<p><a href="https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/11357255-b6b9-4a57-98eb-823776a4a828/KowloonWalledCityGrandPanorama.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/11357255-b6b9-4a57-...</a>
Something thats missing from this that I think is interesting was a temple on the ground floor that everything was built around:<p><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cd/ed/93/cded9349a59088ff02dcf6017e66d281.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cd/ed/93/cded9349a59088ff02dcf6017...</a>
Bird's eye view<p><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Kowloon_Walled_City_-_1989_Aerial.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Kowloon_...</a><p>atm battling roaches in my apt so first thought looking at that ^ was wondering how many millions of cockroaches lived in that thing.
Since finding out about Kowloon walled city, I have been fascinated with it. Most cities have sections (usually older parts of them) that are maze like, and they are often my favorite parts of those cities.<p>It reminds me of the hive cities of Warhammer 40k.<p>Another analysis of Kowloon I enjoyed is this one by the architect Dami Lee [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WLn_QTFVZgE&pp=ygUFIzJhYWI%3D" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WLn_QTFVZgE&pp=ygUFIzJhYWI%3D</a>
Fascinating. I saw this earlier via waxy blog, who got it via colossal, which pointed to an interactive version that also referenced some short videos/documentaries about it: <a href="https://www.rioleo.org/kowloon/" rel="nofollow">https://www.rioleo.org/kowloon/</a><p>It reminds me of "Doubling Up" the 1946 drawing by Saul Steinberg that was one of the sources for Georges Perec's "Life a User's Manual" which - no spoilers - is a book set in a similar densely populated building (aside: a couple of years ago I pitched a Playdate game based on these things) <a href="https://www.fitzroyandfinn.co.uk/journal/georges-perec" rel="nofollow">https://www.fitzroyandfinn.co.uk/journal/georges-perec</a>
If you want to see something similar to Kowloon Walled City, just visit the old parts of Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi.<p>There are plenty of illegal buildings, modified for residence in a haphazard manner with shoulder-width roads passing underneath them.
This is from the Japanese book that is called something along the lines of Great Illustrated Kowloon City which I have a copy of. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kowloon-large-illustrated-ISBN-4000080709/dp/4000080709" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Kowloon-large-illustrated-ISBN-400008...</a>
Hong Kong was always one of my favorite cities and it breaks my heart what has happened to it.<p>I also wish I had a chance to visit his megastructure. Sure it was a slum but an epic one at that.
The Kowloon Walled City is probably the closest IRL structure there is to the (thankfully) fictional hive cities depicted in the Warhammer 40000 universe. Just image that structure, except scaled upwards and outwards by thousands of times.
You can see a bit of the Walled City in the old Van Damme movie, Blood Sport [1].<p>There used to be an incredible multi-story arcade outside Tokyo, あなたのウェアハウス [2], with two of the floors being themed as KWC. The weathering on all the elements (including the escalator and crane games!) was fantastic.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smGHdOU4Qu4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smGHdOU4Qu4</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warehouse_Kawasaki" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warehouse_Kawasaki</a>
Kowloon was a sizable locale in the videogame Shenmue 2. I don't know how true to life that section was, but it was honestly one of the most depressing environments I've ever encountered in a videogame. It was racing up and down dozens of identical floors featuring nothing but dank, claustrophobic apartments.
If you like very detailed art with so much going on like in the image in article you will be in for a treat at <a href="https://reddit.com/r/wimmelbilder" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/wimmelbilder</a>
This seems to be a small thing but it's odd to see people talking about how "Kowloon" used to exist. Kowloon <i>still</i> exists.<p>Kowloon isn't the name of the Walled City, Kowloon is where the Walled City was located.<p>You can still visit Kowloon even today.
Direct linkt to the image: <a href="https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/b21a60cd-a5df-49b5-96e7-2006d8ce91e7/HitomiTerasawa-KowloonWalledCityGrandPanorama1997.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/b21a60cd-a5df-49b5-...</a><p>Only showing a tiny part and auto-scrolling at a fixed non-user controlled speed is an annoying choice.
Living in a place like Kowloon Walled City must be much better than living out of a car. Areas with no legal restrictions on what can and will be built, could help solve the extremely damaging housing crisis in western countries.
Contractors VR (a MP FPS game) has Kowloon as one of the stock maps. It'd be fascinating if it'd be modelled after some real location. Maybe it is, I don't know.
Read more about this place here: <a href="https://cityofdarkness.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">https://cityofdarkness.co.uk/</a>