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You know, it finally occured to me what this looked like (as Molson posted it in the MIT lawsuit thread in Current Events)...Rows of compacted cars stacked on top of one another...and as grotesque as it is, I sincerely think it still looks more attractive than a Frank Gehry creation. At least it has pattern and texture!
http://artkhammarita.files.wordpress...led-city-2.jpg |
This thread refuses to die...but that's fine with me :tup:
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Hell, I'm not sure if we could start an entirely new thread devoted to super-dense, tall, old or otherwise anomalous developments across the globe...
Places like.... Shibam, Yemen http://www.geocities.com/iren_knehtl/images/shibam.gif Longyearbyen, Svalbard, The world's northernmost permanent town (Nearest city with over 1,000 people: Nordkapp, Norway, over 1000 miles away). http://wmatem.eis.uva.es/~angbar/Sva...ngyearbyen.jpg |
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I love the idea. Merits two threads, one for extreme density neighborhoods and/or building clusters (Yemen pics are great); the other for anomalous urban developments (e.g., Longyearbyen). I wouldn't like the Walled City thread to die. Hope that it lives forever. |
An intrepid explorer visits the walled city of Kowloon:
http://www.hh.iij4u.or.jp/~asabe/hon...hkkyuuren.html Hong Kong’s Dirty Little Secret: Clearing the Walled City of Kowloon http://juh.sagepub.com Seth Harter, Journal of Urban History 2000; 27; 92 |
Cross-sections of KWC. Sorry for the small size.
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/4551/kwc1mr7.png http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1337/kc2tr3.png |
^Amazing....wish they could be larger...I remember seeing these somewhere before. The mixture of shops/dwellings/factories/services and the honeycombed maze of passageways across the different levels is utterly fascinating.
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Flickr. Some guy said he scanned them from a magazine (wasn't mentioned which one).
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Apparently, the Kowloon Walled City was the inspiration for the "Narrows" in the Batman Begins version of Gotham City. I saw a much better picture a long time ago, but this is the only one I can get right now.
http://www.dc-kingdom.com/images/features/fallout01.jpg |
Chunking Palace
I don't remember everything since the last time I extensively walked around Tsim Sha Tsui. This was back in 1999, when I was 14.
I remember that the Tsim Sha Tsui area directly around the water was nice, especially in the presence of the Peninsula Hotel. Going deeper into Nathan Road, I remember it was a weird mix of expensive shops (Rolex, Seiko, etc.) and shady malls and the like. But what I recall most that has stuck in my mind were the Chunking Mansions. I had no idea what they were called, and I recall seeing the word "hotel" on the side of the buildings. I looked up towards the upper floors from the nice shops around the ground floor and thought that those were either sweat shops or some shady places to live. They looked deserted despite the presence of open windows and fluorescent lights. I can't really describe what I saw too well, only that it has stuck in my mind ever since I looked up towards the upper floors of the buildings. |
I also went back in 2004. I spent only one day there visiting my mother's friend and her friend's family. We ate lunch and proceeded on a day of visiting museums and the area.
The Hong Kong Museum of History is a SWEET museum. It's incredibly packed with information and exhibitions on the history of Hong Kong. A whole day can be spent there. It's not too expensive and highly recommended. It's located in Tsim Tsa Tsui in Kowloon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Ko...eum_of_History And for the City Planning, City Design, and Transportation connoisseurs is the Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Gallery, which I suspect is an awkwardly translated title. But it's another SWEET museum also, plus its free! They have a full panorama of Hong Kong on a wall behind glass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Ko...bition_Gallery http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ture2006-2.jpg Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/imuttoo/233059547/ There's a whole list of museums that I wanted to go to, but alas, I only had one day there. Maybe next time. Here's a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_in_Hong_Kong |
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榮來工廠大廈
Sorry, I have made a mistake and done continuation entry.
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榮來工廠大廈
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^thanks for the shots. Egads, what a gnarly looking place! Any info?
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Thank you indeed. Those are almost surreal.
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Hi MolsonExport
Hi Reesonov Photograph is explained. The building of pictures is in Tsuen Wan. Although a picture is one building, another building is located in near. Since there was land, these buildings were made. It was built in the very easy feeling. The building was built without deciding the use of commerce, office, etc. However, industry borrowed. This absorbed the labor force which will increase rapidly in the 60s, and supported the Hong Kong economy. Factories, such as a fiber and sewing, buried each floor. The building is not built as a factory. The borrower was freely equipped with piping or wiring. The outside of a wall was equipped with them. Therefore, the chimney is irregularly attached in the outer wall. The dirt of a wall is the symbol of productive capacity of those days. The factory was relocated to cheaper mainland China from the 70s. There are many vacant rooms now. The window was broken and is ruined. The inside of a building is gloomy Kowloon walled city. It is the same. The same building exists in Hong Kong. It is very attractive. The photograph of kowloon walled city last year is attached by addition. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1328/...e9587c80_b.jpg[IMG] http://img.4travel.jp/img/tcs/t/pict...20071104164814[/IMG] http://img.4travel.jp/img/tcs/t/pict...20071104164259 http://img.4travel.jp/img/tcs/t/pict...20071104165352 |
^Amazing stuff! Post more, if you have them.
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up on the roof, where the air is fresh and clean:
http://www.tofu-magazine.net/newVers...ages/KWC-2.jpg http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/culture_j/exh...miyamoto_s.jpg http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Kowloon_4.jpg Closeup external WCK grit: http://chau84.files.wordpress.com/20...wloonsigns.jpg |
check out this video of a 747 passing near the Walled City of Kowloon area back in the old Kai tak airport.
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The insanity continues...
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I found this thread from Google while I was looking for info about the Walled City. There are some good snippets of information. Thanks for the link to the Cantonese video, MolsonExport. Anyone who wants to find more photos of it should probably Google the Chinese characters for Kowloon Walled City (just copy and paste them from Wikipedia's page on it).
I'm kinda fascinated by the place, my grandparents lived there from the 50s/60s to when it was torn down. I've actually been there in the late 80s. I was only a few years old at the time but I remember it pretty clearly. The outside does look like compacted cars and that was the first thing I thought when I was a kid. The atmosphere inside is just what you'd expect from the photos and the videos, except you have to add the numerous rats that seemed to be all over the place. They'd gather at the refuse piles and of all the things I could possibly remember, I somehow remembered that they were eating their veggies. That's the thing that sticks out in my memory of my visit to the place - the rats. The rest of it was just a bunch of dimly lit corridors and old apartment doors. My grandmother's place was a pretty small apartment inside; it was quite clean and cozy but devoid of natural sunlight (lit by fluorescents). My father told me a few stories about what it was like living there. There was nothing really special about it, aside from the fact that it became a huge architectural mess. For regular folk, it was quite safe to live there because the Triads treated it as a place of business and to attract customers, they made sure it wasn't dangerous for outsiders. They certainly left the regular people alone. There was a time when the place was decent, it had regular houses that were gradually overbuilt. The houses were subdivided into many rental units, which accounts for the density. Anyway, once you get to know the place, I'm sure the mystery disappears. I'd ask my dad for more info but I think he gets tired of me asking about it. I ask him once a year and every time I ask more detailed questions and he just doesn't remember or gets bored answering them ("What types of restaurants were there?" and he'd answer "The kind that serves food" and stuff like that). He's lucky I'm not studying to be an anthropologist, because I'd certainly do some sort of research project on the place and he'd have no choice but to answer all my questions. Quote:
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http://tv.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/sho...416ec94ccd4c62 The map is a big fold out spread. From the above video, it appears to be the work of the team that made this website: http://web.archive.org/web/200202082...y/index_e.html Quote:
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Thanks very much for sharing your first- and second-hand accounts of life in the Walled City of Kowloon. I find this place to be utterly fascinating.
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For Walled City fanatics, I found a blog on the topic:
http://bloglikeyougiveadamn.blogspot...lled-city.html |
That looks really dangerous with those planes flying overhead so closely. One wrong move and the plane could crash into the densest area in the world. The results would probably have been horrific.
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Destruction of the walled city of Kowloon (Rare photos!)
http://matleehuf.com/wp-content/uplo...ns_500x384.jpg |
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http://www.koos.hu/wp/wp-content/upl...bf42c7a8e7.jpg
Looks like the contents of a trash-masher. Source" http://www.oneinchpunch.net/2007/09/...area-on-earth/ |
MolsonExport, please provide credit for the photos you post.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/anno....php?f=9&a=313 |
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Interesting... I guess when you get to that level of density, it's absolutely critical to know where all the fire hydrants are... :)
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"Wandering in the village made me think this was what Kowloon Walled City looked like."
That is a street map for some unspecified village in Guangdong, not KWC. |
Kowloon Walled City
http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...re12_large.jpg http://www.klnwcity.org Hi all, I found the existence of the Kowloon Walled City and was amazed and intrigued immediately. I did lots of searches on the web and found this site to. Great thread and great pictures to of which some I haven’t encountered before. I would like to contribute to this forum thread as well and will add some info not posted here before. Floor map Here is the map of Kowloon Walled City of 1987. Its only the floorplan. http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...re12_large.jpg taken from: my city of darkness Book As posted various times the best public collection of information on the KWC to date is the book City of Darkness by Greg Girard (Pictures) and Ian Lambot (Text) published by www.watermarkpublications. Unfortunatly the site does not allow to buy the book from there anymore so only Amazone saves us. http://www.watermarkpublications.co....r-city-400.JPG Greg Girard is still active as photographer and has a website which show pictures of KWC not seen elsewhere yet. Check it out!!! http://www.greggirard.com Here is the site of the japanese expedition just after the city had abandonned/cleared and before it was taken down. It was posted here before but if you haven't seen it yet please take a look, some new pics plus info on the Scent of Kowloon Walled City ; Chungking House. site Links more links (maybe some are familiar, but can't harm to post them): a) http://bloglikeyougiveadamn.blogspot.com b) A movie with scenes of KWC just after left abandoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_S...ming_locations c) and-you-think-youre-cramped site d) The klnwcity.org intro page with the meeting on the KWC future. Map can also be found here. From the same site historic pictures are presented such as http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...ure3_large.jpg (interior view KWC) and http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...ure8_large.jpg This link has been posted before but for those who missed it its worthwhile to check the pics, klick here. Front page picture is http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~keropero/k201.jpeg Btw, @ molsonexport, some of the pics on first page of thread are gone? Can you post them again :D :D. Movies on KWC I don't remember this youtube video on this thread so it mght be new here, dunno. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v5hk5oxj5uM&hl=nl&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v5hk5oxj5uM&hl=nl&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=v5hk5oxj5uM Other vidoe's have been posted already such as the one with the hidden shaking camera and the one from the movie Bloodsport with Belgique actor Jean Claude van Damme. Here is a nice one from the Chungking Mansion, (small KWC) <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Owf7mHiTS4Q&hl=nl&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Owf7mHiTS4Q&hl=nl&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf7mHiTS4Q I have read somewhere that KWC is also filmed in an Episode of Star Trek, deep space nine, episode One man Bashir (season 4, episode 9, production 482). I haven't checked it yet but maybe someone else knows? Documentary (48 min) on KWC: In Search of the Dragon's Tale For the rest, a 48 minutes documentairy called In Search of the Dragon's Tale has been made in the beginning of the 90's and went in premiere Hong Kong Arts Centre on 31 August, 1997. It received a price, it was Winner of The Gold Award (Documentaries) at the Hong Kong Independent Short Films and Video Awards 1997. The film was produced by See Wan Kei & Haymann Lau and has been aired several times on TV. Here is a review taken from here. Review Summary This documentary takes a look inside the Walled City of Kowloon in Hong Kong. Known for being a seedy, sleazy city, this town underwent many changes since 1992, when a political agreement between China and Britain led to the destruction of Kowloon, leaving most of its 40,000 residents homeless, especially the elderly and poor. Street musician Maurice Chan, who was raised in Kowloon, takes the viewer behind the history and mystique of this former city and shows the status of the uprooted residents now. Through never-before-seen footage and photographs, Chan shows the state of Hong Kong. He talks about his own personal experiences and also interviews some former Kowloon residents who are now fighting homelessness and extreme poverty. ~ Cecilia Cygnar, All Movie Guide I have searched the web to find this material for days but unfortunatly unsuccessfully. The only think I could find are these sites: The original site of the docu with the script of the film still exist however the links and email seem not to work anymore. The site is also very old (1997). http://members.tripod.com/~dragon/index.html. This site is actually also the site of the production company so the probably set up there own producing company while shooting/editing the docu. Or they did it before, don't know. Here is another site about the docu with some info on the producers with pics. Here I found that See Wan-kei wasn't a native chinese but western and later I found that his western name is Stuart M. Rankin. Often when people stay in China for a long time/ have many chinese friends they take a chinese name substitute for the time being. I did it also for fun when I took chinese lessons here in the netherlands. My teacher was a woman from Bejing. She told me that it was common. Anyway, the email address of Haymann Lau on the site above doesn't work so that's another dead end. What I did find is that Stuart M. Rankin has a facebook page, so maybe I am gonna bother him soon with my questions :D. Well this it, my contribution to the thread, with some information already known here, but also some new stuff I hope. Please if anyone has info on documentaries on KWC pls post!!!! Lets keep this thread alive. What I actually still mis is where KWC was located with respect to the Kai Tai Airport. Maybe some can post a pic? |
ai, I did something wrong, wanted to embed the youtubevids but didn't work, well links are there luckily.
does anyone have the twenty4 site on KWC still working, somehow I cannot open it anymore. |
I think I could live in there for a few years if I had a translator. Any offers out there?
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tx :D
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"Apartments" at the edge of the city on the ground floor where very much wanted since the rent was still low compared to other places in HK and no taxes had to be paid and now permits were nessecary.
http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...ure5_large.jpg link |
At its peak mid 80's KWC held over 800 manufacturers within its walls.
http://www.klnwcity.org/intro/large/...ure9_large.jpg link |
The guy who made the 1990 vid of KWC most likely walked the route in blue on the map below.
link to vid http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/636...arknessxd2.jpg The route Jean Claude van Damme walked in Bloodsport is to complicated (for me) to retrace unfortunatly. I think, considering the 3 turns they made they shot at three independend and not connected streets in the movie, but again, not sure. link to vid |
I tried to embed the vid by copy past the code but doesn't work, anyone who can tell me how this is done on this forum? tx
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I was reading up on it a little yesterday. Fascinating, and just incredible that people could live in such a place. 50,000 people in 0.01 square miles??? Some of the other facts about it were even more incredible in some ways. Its beginnings started as far back as the year 960. Amazing, I had no idea it was that old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_City_of_Kowloon |
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