Kowloon Walled City: Heterotopia in a Space of Disappearance (2013)

I am adding a blog post, shared on HN a couple months ago, that show an architectural cross section of the city.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cohost.org&#x2F;belarius&#x2F;post&#x2F;6677850-architectural-cross" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cohost.org&#x2F;belarius&#x2F;post&#x2F;6677850-architectural-cross</a><p>(I am not the author of the blog, nor the original poster, but I just want to share the link because I found this incredibly cool)

I feel like Kowloon is a decent metaphor for software design at most typical large SaaS companies: small changes accreted over time that lead to an impenetrable, wandering structure that only the residents (developers) truly understand.

&gt; What remains unclear is why there was such little protest over its demolition<p>Why would there be? This seems like one of those &quot;people living in squalor is their right!&quot; statements by people on the outside that want to visit a human zoo. I suspect no one that was living there would choose to go back if it still existed. My friends from there certainly don&#x27;t. They might have a few fond memories but so do war veterans.

A bit unrelated, but since people with Hong Kong knowledge may be reading: How are the Chungking Mansions doing? The atmosphere there was sometimes compared to Kowloon Walled City, and I remember when my roommate stayed there in the 90s he reported that from his window that faced the inner courtyard he could not see the ground, just darkness. Also, it was reported to have rats as big as cats and cockroaches as big as rats (I hope jokingly).<p>How is it doing now? Still as dystopian?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;S-rj8m7Ssow" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;S-rj8m7Ssow</a><p>This is one of the better documentaries out there about Kowloon. It&#x27;s in German but you can turn on English subtitles. They got a camera inside and you get a decent taste of what life was like there.

Kowloon Walled City was very neat. If you want to get a feel for what it was like, there&#x27;s a German language documentary from 1988 (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=m9PZ05NLDww" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=m9PZ05NLDww</a>) that was filmed inside of it. This essay, however is pompous word salad of the worst type.

Anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong should read the novel Tai-Pan. That’s some great historical fiction. No idea which parts are accurate, but it’s a fun read.

The pictures give you a Blade Runner feel

William Gibson, Idoru. Heroine Chia Pet ends up (after some adventures, in cyberspace and meat) with place in the walled city. It&#x27;s a good book.

Nice book on Kowloon with plenty of pictures: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;city-of-darkness-life-in-kowloon-walled-city-1993&#x2F;page&#x2F;89&#x2F;mode&#x2F;2up" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;city-of-darkness-life-in-kowloon...</a>

In the aerial view image (the 3rd image on the page) you can see the walled city next to a park in the foreground). The park is still there today (and now the remnants of the walled city are absorbed into the park).<p>Here is an aerial view that has a similar orientation [1].<p>The park is a cycling park, which explains the curvy paths.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;search&#x2F;kowloon+walled+city&#x2F;@22.329547,114.1893713,236a,35y,39.46t&#x2F;data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&amp;g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;search&#x2F;kowloon+walled+city&#x2F;@22.3...</a>

Somewhat related there is a recent Hong Kong movie based on Kowloon Walled City [1] that is old fashion Hong Kong Kung Fu with background sets in Kowloon Walled City in 80s.<p>Unfortunately most of the Neon and Sign Post are mostly gone in Hong Kong. I think people should go and visit Hong Kong to see the last bit of it before it became something else.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twilight_of_the_Warriors:_Walled_In" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twilight_of_the_Warriors:_Wall...</a>

I think this title might be just a little on the pretentious side.

If you&#x27;re interested in Kowloon, check out <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cityofdarkness.co.uk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cityofdarkness.co.uk&#x2F;</a>

There are Heterotopias in the US too. Some of the border regions in Southwest Texas intermittently occupied by cartels or smugglers come to mind.

I really wish the walled city would have been preserved somehow. I never got a chance to see it but it has had so much influence on pop culture. It was one of the big influences of cyberpunk for example. It could have been an open air museum.

Skip the text, take time to look closely at each photograph. Linger and observe each for some time.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehkhub.com&#x2F;historic-kowloon-walled-city-recreated-at-hong-kong-international-airport&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thehkhub.com&#x2F;historic-kowloon-walled-city-recreated-...</a><p>Was very neat.

Unbelievable that the place wasn&#x27;t consumed by fire at some point.

KWC is a pretty fascinating place, but all I&#x27;ve ever seen about it is from people on the outside looking in. Are there any accounts from the people who lived there?

sorta mind blowing to look at what&#x27;s there now<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kowloon_Walled_City_Park#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:Kowloon_Walled_City_Park_Overview_201807.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kowloon_Walled_City_Park#&#x2F;medi...</a>

I never understood why it&#x27;s called a walled city. It doesn&#x27;t have walls protecting it.

Looks like that component that somehow works and nobody dares touch it.

I wish the people romanticizing or fetishizing Kowloon Walled City could have been forced to live there.<p>They remind me of the urban planners of the 50s and 60s who designed dense barren concrete monstrosities for the proles to live in as part of various urban renewal projects, from the comfort of their suburban garden estates.

&quot;the communist reforms from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s&quot; is a little generous; for better and for worse the article seems very aligned to the politics of the current leadership of the &quot;New China&quot;

fascinating. It represents every failed public housing project in the U.S. as well, like the one in <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Koyaanisqatsi#Filming" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Koyaanisqatsi#Filming</a> and in NYC