The colony of Kowloon Walled City, located within Hong Kong. It was created without consulting a town planner, which is what makes this community so unique and harmonious with its natural setting.
It was mainly ungoverned, but it was also the most populated, with over 50,000 people living in these construction blocks. Like the Song Dynasty, the city’s mission was to administer and oversee the salt trade.
It was a site where refugees looked for new homes and where new structures were constructed. It was not ruled by the British, but it operated entirely on its own terms. Leung Ping-kwan, a poet and cultural personality in the city, described the atmosphere of the city in his book “City of Darkness” as a highly complicated, dangerous location where most people continued to live a regular life.
THE ARCHAIC AND PERSISTENT URBAN DESIGN OF KOWLOON
You might travel from side to side without touching solid ground in this contemporary concrete labyrinth. Mismatched windows, caged terraces, metal bridges, and tiny, winding alleyways Because of the neighboring Kai Tak airport, the buildings could not have more than 14 stories. Only the center was free of obstructions (yamen). They gathered here to sip tea, watch TV, and socialize.
Hong Kong officials have dismantled much of Kowloon’s walled city to make way for a park. Tourists can go there, wander around on their roofs, and try to figure out what was formerly there.
Years after the Chinese and British government razed this bastion, a team of Japanese documentary makers produced ‘Grand Panorama of the Kowloon Walled City’ in 1996, with a stunning fold-out spread depicting a comprehensive cross section of the city.
This cross section graphic is an excellent representation of Kowloon’s intricacy. A long cry from the low-rise hovels or ground-level development. The world’s most densely populated metropolis was a maze of little hallways and staircases connecting thousands of residences in a tight and especially living network reminiscent of old architecture.
Kowloon, like these, was unhealthy, unsafe, and had a high crime rate. Each of these arguments would have been enough to convict the construction, but when taken together, ‘the structure’ posed a major threat to the safety of the region and the families who live in the complex. In a future of smart cities, the complex’s removal seemed unavoidable.
DEMOLISHING THE URBAN CHAOS
For decades, the Triads, an organized-crime syndicate originating in Zhengzhou, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, held Kowloon and controlled this strange compound. In reality, the Hong Kong police stated in 1983 that they were unable to maintain control within Kowloon. That was when plans to demolish the city were disclosed, a decision that had been delayed for over a decade.
The destruction of Kowloon began in March 1993, a process that lasted almost a year and was met with some local opposition. Apart from mafias, narcotics, delinquents, and filth, the crowded metropolis also had families, companies, and stores. On the site, the Kowloon Walled City Park was erected, a tiny park that resembles an ancient Qing Dynasty bastion.
Compensation
Despite its informal status and unstable architecture, which was built nearly with contempt for any public code and legislation that did not conform to the common sense of its residents, Kowloon could not be razed suddenly. Before demolishing this unique colony, Hong Kong had to provide accommodation for its people and set up a HK$2.7 billion (US$350 million) compensation fund.
Nonetheless, not everyone want to go. After decades of nearly anarchic life, some occupants refused to leave and had to be ejected from the citadel.