VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

The proposal analyses the space of Kowloon’s disappeared walled city through photographs and drawings. The pictures from G. Lambord and I. Girard’s and the illustrations of Terasawa Kazumi have the ability to demonstrate a messy urban configuration from a social and ethnographic point of view, highlighting the idea of community as a fundamental and indispensable element in the development of this labyrinthine vertical slum narrative.
Lambot and Girard, fascinated by this urban space, portray a place that, despite its deficiencies, manages to understand the city as a mega-organic structure that adapts spatially and socially to the changing requirements of users. Their photographs collect the daily life of this place, becoming an urban and social public document that facilitates the recreation and understanding of a disappeared place. Additionally, Terasawa Kazumi’s drawings reflect private and public spatial disposal. The illustrations note the living and working areas and the activities developed in the tiny spaces that made up each block, including the relationship between them. The general section and details depicted evidence for concepts related to high density and the dissolution of the limits between public and private. The depictions offer a narrative that explores new uses and forms of occupation that help the viewer understand the space’s performance. Both approaches investigate social and architectural aspects that serve as the basis for Kowloon’s spatial recreation, illustrating concepts and reflections on the development of the place and allowing observation and analysis to understand this disappeared city.