(GuangKong by Joshua LAU, At the 48th Minutes)
DIS(RE)PLACEMENT, REFABRICATION & DISAPPEARANCE
In no more than 2 years time, a mega-metropolis will emerge above the land of Pearl River Delta. At the slice of completion, a newly created in-between fragement by the action of future-time liquidation appears to be what "shortened". It is temporary, transcient, impermanent and maybe imperfect as it does not describe nor project the essence of its origin. It is brand new, wishful, dynamic and attractive, breaks the state of balance between the two cities, re-configures relationship between the lands and their people. It is yet a process of another beginning.
In the 2006 Venice Biennale, the discussion of the Hong Kong Exhibition identifies the idea of "Displacement", as a phenomonon derived from a multiple restrains of hyper density, soaring land value and economicontests amongest other asian metropolises, cities are read as a fragmented palimpsest continuously being transcribed, transformed, trnansferred and even transported. The following 2 biennale exhibitions including the ShenZhen/ Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale and Venice in 2008 argues that Hong Kong is a city of "Refabrication" and "Disappearance" with alarming frequency of construction and deconstruction, leaving memories, how creative disciplines are able to engage in the process of generating and regenerating the city’s fabric in its various scopes and scales.
To continue the ideas and obervations by architects and scholars in the PRD, every action of "displacements" is a transaction of space and value causes "disappearance", "replaces" and "refabricates" fragment of the city. The Bi-City of Shen Zhen & Hong Kong already proved to have contributed over 50% of GDP in the PRD region. The new direct 48 minutes portal from the West Kowloon to GuangZhou will future strength these three cities in to a Mega-Urban Region, contributes up to 75% of GDP and not Tri-City in description. This integration of urbanity ignites by the greater PRD intercity transportation creates job opportunities within the region, meaning also creation of sustainable middle class which supports the regional economic stalization process.
Habitus; citizens of different background and perception would somewhat see this marriage of the cities with unlimited possibilites. "Displacement" continues to be prevailing phenomana takes place at the Great Leap of Red China in the Pearl River Delta. The displacements of economic activities from the better developed origins includes obsoletes manufacturing factories and labour intensive businesses, in order to make space for the service industries, refabricate the city wtih new set of citizenship. Spatial transactions continues to transform the relationship between each nodes in the PRD and shifts economic focuses from site to site until the state of equilibrium.
(Source: CBRE One Hour Living Sphere)
On the verge of the begining of new era in this One Hour Living Sphere, the story of GuangZhou and Hong Kong would become the "norm" within the region of PRD. The shortened time allows citizens better chance for transactions to occurs and translate existing culture and fabric into state of uncertainty. As economy will continue to reach its equalibrium during the period of massive displacement actions, the sense of origin will inevitably be ignored and becoming one.
In this sense, ideas previouly discussed were only temporary and imperfect. Passes the state of the definate actions of "DIS-" & "RE-" we are at the edge of losing identity and ego as a city, when the new world is looking at combined direct "Urban Actions" between two sites, hence "EXCHANGE", that includes PLACEMENT, FABRICATION & APPEARANCE. Inevitably cities identity becomes ambiguous, but is that so?
No doubt that the 48th minute of the ride on the new high-speed train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou (if I’ve got it right) will mark a turning point in Hong Kong’s history. No more a city in its own right, no more a more or less self-sufficient entity, it will become one of the many central areas of a huge conglomeration. Guang Kong, the name coined for the new urban reality that develops in the area formerly occupied by Guangzhou and Hong Kong and the places between them couldn’t be more telling of the new urban order. To be clear, self –sufficient cities have never been. The very idea of the city is based on exchange: exchange of goods and people and ideas; such exchanges have skyrocketed in the last decades, undermining the very foundations of the city as a meaningful concept. What is still left to make it meaningful is its physical configuration, a more or less structured whole with an area that is classified in people’s minds as city centre and around which an ocean of inhabited and developed land unfolds. The possibility of quick transportation, the possibility of being present in a distant place within less than an hour, after crossing patches of land of the same nature as the point of origin and the point of arrival profoundly changes our idea of what constitutes a “city”, and specifically Hong Kong. The unlimited fields of opportunities, of chances, of acquaintances and job-offers that today’s cities are today, claim a relevant image in people’s minds. Do we have to adapt our cities to their image? Do we need to compromise Hong Kong’s physical configuration by integrating it in a visually consistent way within a vast new conglomerate? Or should we keep it as a showcase of self-sufficiency, a relic of the past, the first 21th century monument of a bygone world?
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